Program Synopsis
Mrs. Pingel models the summarizing strategy with a book of short biographies about National Park rangers. As they search for what is important in the stories during paired reading, Conlin goes into his story and uses the strategy to save an injured hiker. His newfound summarizing abilities even help him during games at the park with his friends.

Featured text:
Rangers Activity and Sticker Book, by Greer Chesher, illustrated by Guy Porfirio. Fort Washington, PA: Eastern National, 2005.
(Available via phone order: 877-628-7275)

Other texts mentioned:
Crawling Water Beetle, from EEK (Environmental Education for Kids), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Lon Po Po: a Red-Riding Hood story from China, translated and illustrated by Ed Young. New York: Philomel Books, 1989.

Teaching Suggestions:

• Think about how you want to use this program. How does it fit into your teaching plan?
  1. Use it to introduce summarizing.
  2. As a follow-up or review.
  3. To support students who are having difficulty summarizing.

Before viewing:

• Set a purpose for watching the video. Explain that students will be trying the strategy themselves after they watch the video.
• Ask students to watch for something specific in the program, for example:
  1. Why do you think they use the flashlight as a symbol for summarizing?
  2. Why does Conlin need to learn to summarize?

During viewing:

• Pause the video during teachable moments. For example:
  1. In the prologue, after Conlin's friends say "Forget it, let's just go play soccer."
     Ask students what the problem was, and what they think Conlin should do.
  2. In the classroom, after Kamilah says "I could have summarized it better."
     Ask students how she could have done it better.
  3. After Conlin comes back to the classroom from his adventure.
     Ask students "What did Conlin learned from his adventure."

After viewing:

• If you posed questions before viewing, discuss the students' answers.
• Try summarizing a passage using the cross-out method as a full-class activity, as Mrs. Pingel's class did in the video. Choose a passage and project it on an overhead or white board, or transcribe it onto butcher paper. Then work with students to cross out the details and leave only what is important. (If you would like to use the same passage that was used in the video, you can find it here: Crawling Water Beetle
• Have students do the Summarizing activity in the student area of the Web site. Compare students' summaries and talk about why they chose the things they did to include in their summaries.
• Model summarizing during your read-aloud. Choose a chapter book to read. Each day, summarize the chapter you read the previous day before you begin to read. After several days of modeling, begin to hand this task over to students.
• Try some of the lesson plans on this site.
• Listen to the Summarizing song.

Preview Clips

Reviewing Summarizing video Notice how Mrs. Pingel had previously conducted guided practice with the whole class on summarizing, before today giving students the opportunity for independent practice. Try it yourself: Try the beach ball summarizing activity with your class; use the Summary Ball lesson plan. Demonstration and Practice video Notice how Mrs. Pingel models summarizing by underlining with wax sticks before she asks students to try it. Try it yourself: Never ask students to do something you haven't modeled for them first! Try this activity with your class: with wax sticks, students can practice underlining important parts in texts without writing in them, so you can practice summarizing with any text you choose. Summarizing for comprehension video Notice how Mrs. Pingel asks students to think about how the strategy helps them understand. It's important not to teach strategies for their own sake, but always to focus on the goal: comprehension. Try it yourself: Let your students practice summarizing and demonstrate their comprehension using our lesson Paper Bag Report lesson plan. Summarizing the game video Notice how Conlin is able to apply the strategy he learned in class to a problem in his own life. Try it yourself: Discuss with students how summarizing might be useful in other situations. Call attention to other situations in which students are using (or could use) strategies as they come up throughout the day.