How to Teach Older Students to Effectively Summarize Texts
Do you find that your students struggle to summarize texts in their own words? Often students just want to copy the words from the text. As such, they struggle to understand what it means to put something in their own words. So, how can you move students from copycats to creative thinkers? Here’s how to teach older students to effectively summarize texts in their own words.
Step One
Start with an easy text and a simple question. Find something that doesn’t require you to sift through extraneous information. For example, if students read at the eighth, ninth, or tenth grade level, for demonstration purposes, choose a text written for third or fourth graders. That way, students can focus on the new task of finding key information and putting it in their own words, not on understanding what a difficult text is saying.
Step Two
Next, tell students they’re going to learn a complicated skill. Explain that they are learning how to ask questions, conduct research, find evidence, put it in their own words…and that’s hard. Remind them that hard work helps to grow their brains and make them smarter. Prompt them to monitor their focus and engage their brains. By priming students, you bring their focus to the complexity of the task. This makes them more likely to attend more fully to the challenge.
Step Three
Read each sentence and highlight relevant information to answer the question. Model this for students at least one time. Continuously revisit the question that you’re trying to answer to anchor the details you highlight as main ideas.
Step Four
Finalize by taking the highlighted information and putting it in your own words. Once again, model this. Make sure to explain what “in your own words” actually means. Then demonstrate what this looks like.
Step Five
Following your demonstration, have students try this either with a partner or in a small group. Students can work together and debate what counts as an important detail and what parts of the text answer the question. Consider creating an anchor chart, a checklist, or some other handout so students can go through the process step-by-step with examples to help them do it right. Have groups share out and the entire class come up with a list of qualifiers for what counts as important details and what it means to put something in your own words.
Step Six
Pull it all together by giving students practice with increasingly difficult texts. Always give feedback and make sure to have students self-assess as much as possible.
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