Introduction to Summarizing

Introduction to Summarizing

What is Summarizing?

• Summarizing is finding the key ideas and supporting details to get the “gist” of a piece of writing.
• Skilled readers distill what is important -- based on the purpose of reading -- to understand and recall the text.

Three Key Elements of Summarizing

• Provide an overview or topic statement.
• Include key details.
• Leave out irrelevant or unimportant details.

How is Summarizing Important?

• Aids students in processing information and focusing in on the key ideas.
• Helps students see how ideas fit together to form a coherent whole.
• Provides students with a means for presenting their ideas in ways that others can understand.

How Does Summarizing Help Students?

• Encourages your students to get used to looking for key ideas in the text as they read. This is a key element of comprehension.
• Helps students connect key ideas to sense or meaning. Summarizing helps them absorb the ideas in the text.
• Selecting key vocabulary words from the text helps your students expand their word knowledge.
• Supports students in both comprehending and remembering information.

How Can I Prepare Students to Use This Practice?

• Provide clear explanations about what summarizing is and how it can help students in all subjects.
• Share real examples of how students use summarizing every day.
• Offer strategies and tools to help students with summarizing, including digital tools.
• Give students lots of opportunities to practice summarizing many types of texts, both online and in print.

Discussion Questions 1

• What types of problems do your struggling readers encounter when they are asked to summarize literature or informational texts?
• Which Common Core State Standards focus on summarizing?
• Which specific features of digital text could support students' ability to summarize?