Writing Summaries in Guided Reading

Read the text then answer the questions. Or is it read the text then stumble about trying to find the evidence in the text the children know is there but cannot find again? In this lesson we will use Summary writing to help children create a “map” of the text as they read. This will not only help them retrieve information later but will encode more of the text into their memories along the way. This is especially helpful when reading whole picture books or studying multi-page sections of a text.

What will students learn?

·       Learn how to turn a text into short summaries.

·       Improve their recall of stories or longer extracts

·       Learn how to find and use quotes for 2- and 3-mark Reading questions.

·       Gain confidence when writing answers to Reading questions.

Summarising is a Generative Learning technique that is powerful with Primary children. Read the text to the class, explaining to children that after this they will be reading the text again and will be writing a Summary of the text: turning each page into just a few sentences.  This first reading is about meeting the text so most the class’s attention should be on enjoying and thinking about the text. Children may wish to have a note pad for this first reading so they can note down the key words or unfamiliar words they meet.

This is where you will notice the biggest difference in this way of doing a Guided Reading lesson: most of the time is spent reading and engaging with the text and not much answering questions about it. 

The Lesson

What to do

Give children time to read the text again on their own or with a partner and Summarise it as they read. If you are reading a picture book, ask children to write a single sentence to summarise the events from each page as they read along. This can be especially fun if the page does not have any written words. You could do this as a whole class using a visualizer or a digital copy to show the text on the board. For a longer/full text, ask children to write 3 sentences for each page.

If this is your first time trying this approach, you may wish to break the pages up into 2 or 3 sections. Don’t be tempted to ask children to summarise every paragraph as this will slow their reading too much and hinder understanding.

Why do this?

As someone wiser than I said “memory is the residue of thought” and this approach gets children thinking about the text, what happens in the text and – most importantly – where in the text the events happen.

This style of summary writing is one of a range of Generative Learning techniques that support children in thinking more – and therefore remembering more – of their learning. More time and energy are spent with children thinking about the focus of the learning and less on the task. In the case of Guided Reading, we want children focused on the text with less time spent grappling with the questions. If they know the text well the questions will be simple – even those dreaded 3-mark ones!

By restricting children to just 1 or 3 sentences they must really think about what they have read, what happened and what meaning the author is trying to convey to the reader, which means this approach is self-differentiating. More able readers will have to grapple with turning all their ideas into just a single sentence that captures the essence of their reading. Those developing readers will guided in ensuring they have understood what they read and that it makes sense in the context of their earlier notes.

Questions to ask in the lesson

·       What does that picture mean to you? What about to your partner?

·       What are the highest impact parts of the page we need to remember?

·       What are the key points the author wants us to remember on this page? 

Answering the questions

Have the children understood the text? Let’s break out those all-important questions. For a 1-hour Guided Reading lessons, allow the last 15-20mins for individual work on the questions. You could do this in silence. If you are doing daily Guided Reading lessons, use sessions earlier in week for the reading and summarising, and then come to the questions later in the week.

This is where the major surprise as a teacher comes: this is the quick and easy part of the lesson. Having spent time reading, re-reading, and summarising the text, children will be able to rapidly hunt back through the text or their summary notes to find answers. Cut down the amount of time you would usually expect children to spend on these questions by 30%. After using this approach a few times, and the children becoming confident in summairsing, I cut down the time by 50% - especially for the lower order retrieval questions.

Extension Ideas

1. When answering the questions, take the text away. Can children get the correct answers from their summary notes and memories alone? This will be a test of memory and the ability to craft summary notes from reading. It can be a good technique for those over-confident children or works well to build confidence for those who lack faith in their own abilities.

2. ·Summarise your summary. Can you boil down your summary to just 5 sentences? A nice follow-on activity for your speedier children. This will get them engaging their poetic skills, making every word count or using their punctuation skills to craft long and winding sentences.

3. The elevator pitch: why should someone read this text? What are the best moments you noted in your summary?