UNIT 10

SUMMARIZ
ING
Reading Comprehension
Skills

Created By :
K. Agi Riwanda
2008111305 Antok
Suryo Negoro 2007111230
Ami Okrasari
2008111314 Perati Oktapia
2007111244 Istin Selvia
Ningsih 2008111183 Dedi
Kurniawan 2008111324

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF PGRI PALEMBANG
2011 - 2012
 UNIT 10

SUMMARIZING

Introduction

Summarizing is a reading comprehension task that involves taking larger selections of text
and reducing them to their bare essentials. It encompasses understanding the key points or main
ideas of what is being read. For many students, this proves to be a difficult task. Many students
require lots of instruction and practice of this skill. Research suggests that instruction and practice
in summarizing will not only improve students' ability to summarize text, but also their overall
comprehension of text content(Farstrup, 2002).To effectively teach the skill of summarizing the
teacher must be prepared to model frequently and allow students ample practice time with
appropriate feedback. Below we will discuss some important issues related to summarizing and
comprehension.

Student Outcomes

When students are able to summarize what they have read, they are able to comprehend
the given text. Summarizing is one of the most important comprehension skills students need to
acquire in order to become successful readers . Summarizing is the ability to strip away all
extraneous information to get the main idea of what you are reading. When you ask students to
summarize what they have read, students will first list everything they have read. Students find
summarizing very difficult at first because they are unskilled in identifying the main idea.
Identifying the main idea is a complex cognitive skill that requires students to make a judgment
regarding essential and non-essential information. Most often students tend to write too much or
not enough. Once students understand how to pull out just the important ideas, they are able to
get the gist of what they have read.

  Like most reading comprehension skills, summarizing is a very difficult skill for students to
learn because it is difficult to get the idea across that they don’t need all the information that they
read, just the important details. That said, reality is that as teachers we ask students to summarize
all the time, but we rarely equip them with the skills to complete this seemingly complex task.

Unit 10 Summarizing
What Is Summarizing?
Summarizing is how we take larger selections of text and reduce them to their bare
essentials: the gist, the key ideas, the main points that are worth noting and remembering.
Webster's calls a summary the "general idea in brief form"; it's the distillation, condensation, or
reduction of a larger work into its primary notions.

“ Just tell the story in your own words and try to be to the point”.

What Are We Doing When We Summarize?

We strip away the extra verbiage and extraneous examples. We focus on the heart of the
matter. We try to find the key words and phrases that, when uttered later, still manage to capture
the gist of what we've read. We are trying to capture the main ideas and the crucial details
necessary for supporting them.

When You Ask Your Students to Summarize, What Usually Happens?

 they write down everything

 they write down next to nothing
 they give me complete sentences
 they write way too much
 they don't write enough
 they copy word for word

What Did You Want Them To Do?

 pull out main ideas

 focus on key details
 use key words and phrases
 break down the larger ideas
 write only enough to convey the gist
 take succinct but complete notes

Unit 10 Summarizing
How to Summarize ?

1. Read the article.

2. Re-read the article. Underline important ideas. Circle key terms. Find the main point of the
article. Divide the article into sections or stages of thought, and label each section or stage
of thought in the margins. Note the main idea of each paragraph if the article is short.
3. Write brief summaries of each stage of thought or if appropriate each paragraph. Use a
separate piece of paper for this step. This should be a 
brief outline of the article. 
4. Write the main point of the article. Use your own words. This should be a sentence that
expresses the central idea of the article as you have determined it the from steps above. 
5. Write your rough draft of the summary. Combine the information from the first four steps
into paragraphs. 

NOTE: Include all the important ideas.

Use the author's key words.

Follow the original organization where possible.
Include any important data.
Include any important conclusions. 

6. Edit your version. Be concise. Eliminate needless words and repetitions.

(Avoid using "the author says...," "the author argues...," etc.)
 
7. Compare your version to the original. 

Do not use quotations, but if you use them be sure to quote

correctly.  Indicate quotations with quotation marks. Cite each
quotation correctly (give the page number).
Do not plagiarize. Cite any paraphrases by citing the page number 
the information appears on. Avoid paraphrasing whenever possible. 
Use your own words to state the ideas presented in the article.

In the summary, you should include only the information your readers need.

Unit 10 Summarizing
 1. State the main point first.
2. Use a lower level of technicality than the authors of the original article use. Do not write a
summary your readers cannot understand.
3. Make the summary clear and understandable to someone who has not read the original
article. Your summary should stand on its own.
4. Write a summary rather than a table of contents.
Wrong: This article covers point X. Then the article covers point Y.
Right: Glacial advances have been rapid as shown by x, y, and z.
5. Add no new data and none of your own ideas.
6. Use a simple organization: 

main point
main results: give the main results
conclusions/recommendations

7. Unless the examples in the article are essential, do not include the examples in your
summary. If you include them, remember to explain them.

So when you write a summary:

1. State the main point first.

2. Emphasize the main stages of though.
3. State the article’s conclusion.
4. Summarize rather than give a table of contents.

Example:
Wrong: 
This article covers the topic of measuring the extent of global deforestation. The article
discusses reasons for concern, the technique, the results, and the project’s current goal.
Right:
According to the author of “Seeing the Forest,” the extent of global deforestation was
difficult to measure until satellite remote sensing techniques were applied. Measuring the
extent of global deforestation is important because of concerns about global warming and

Unit 10 Summarizing
 species extinctions. The technique compares old infrared LANDSAT images with new
images. The authors conclude the method is accurate and cost effective.

5. Keep summary short: 3 to 7 sentences.

How Can I Teach My Students to Summarize?

Please be warned: teaching summarizing is no small undertaking. It's one of the hardest
strategies for students to grasp, and one of the hardest strategies for you to teach. You have to
repeatedly model it and give your students ample time and opportunities to practice it. But it is
such a valuable strategy and competency. Can you imagine your students succeeding in school
without being able to break down content into manageable small succinct pieces? We ask students
to summarize all the time, but we're terrible about teaching them good ways to do this!

Here are a few ideas; try one...try them all. But keep plugging away at summarizing. This strategy is
truly about equipping your students to be lifelong learners.

 After students have used selective underlining on a selection, have them turn the sheet
over or close the handout packet and attempt to create a summary paragraph of what they
can remember of the key ideas in the piece. They should only look back at their underlining
when they reach a point of being stumped. They can go back and forth between writing the
summary and checking their underlining several times until they have captured the
important ideas in the article in the single paragraph.
 Have students write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining and reducing their
written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains. They can start
off with half a page; then try to get it down to two paragraphs; then one paragraph; then
two or three sentences; and ultimately a single sentence.
 Teach students to go with the newspaper mantra: have them use the key words or phrases
to identify only Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
 Take articles from the newspaper, and cut off their headlines. Have students practice
writing headlines for (or matching the severed headlines to) the "headless" stories.
 Sum It Up: You can adjust the amount they have to spend, and therefore the length of the
summary, according to the text they are summarizing. Consider setting this up as a learning

Unit 10 Summarizing
 station, with articles in a folder that they can practice on whenever they finish their work
early or have time when other students are still working.
 A summary.  When we think of a summary, we typically think of the end of something: the
end of a textbook chapter, the end of a year, etc.  In fact, a summary is a wrap-up--a
general picture of the information--much like TV networks produce at the end of the year. 
In textbooks, summaries provide a quick overview of a subject without having the reader
wade through a lot of facts and details.  Summaries help readers and writers boil
information down to its most basic elements.  Encyclopedias, almanacs, and digests provide
good examples of summaries.
 Effective summary reading and writing are important study strategies.  Yet, summarizing is
often quite difficult for children.   It requires them to categorize details, eliminate
insignificant information, generalize information, and use clear, concise language to
communicate the essence of the information.  With practice, students can use summarizing
to support their reading and learning. 
The next two strategies can be used to help young readers comprehend
informational writing.
 1.   Since textbook chapter summaries provide a "big picture" of the chapter, it is
often useful for a student to read the chapter summary first.   This establishes the
mental framework to support effective learning of the details when the student
reads; the good reader can then read the chapter and "plug" the details into the
"big picture." 
 2.  Summarizing while reading can also help students monitor their understanding
of the information they've read.  They can read a few paragraphs and put the
information they've read in their own words.  They can write this summary down or
share it orally with a partner.  By putting the information in their own words,
learners understand what they know and what they don't know.  Then they can
reread the information that they did not recall.  This puts the reader in charge of
their own learning. 
Summary writing can help children clarify their thinking about content and support
their reading of information.  In writing a summary, the student should:

Unit 10 Summarizing
a. Read the material (or engage in the learning) with the intent of writing a
summary.  S/he should attend to the main ideas and notice how the writing
is organized--time order or some other strategy.  Headings, subheadings, and
topic sentences can help the student recognize the main ideas and may help
him/her recognize how the selection is organized.
b. Put his/her ideas in their own words as they read.  Maybe every paragraph
or two, s/he should retell to him/herself the information that s/he just read. 
c. Collapse examples and details into categories.  Use clear, concise, general
statements to describe these grouped ideas or categories together.
d. Use the same organizational strategy as the original author.  In other
words, if the original information is presented in chronological order, the
student should use time order to summarize the information. 
e. Should remember that a good summary isn't a string of facts; it is a
miniature version of the original text.  S/he should include no unnecessary
details by deleting trivial and repetitious information. 
f. Integrate the information into a coherent piece of writing.  
g. Polish the summary.  Rethinking and revising a summary helps students get
a firmer grasp the main points of the material.

References

Unit 10 Summarizing
http://www.ehow.com/how_4912802_teach-comprehension-skills-th-grade.html

http://www.readingquest.org/summarize

http://www.red6747.com/pbwork/summarizing

http://www.cedensu.com/IRCMS - Summarizing

All of them accesed on April, 23 2011 19.00 PM

Unit 10 Summarizing