What Is Summarizing?
- Identify key points
- Distinguish important details from irrelevant ones
- Retain information more efficiently
- Rephrase concepts in their own words, leading to deeper comprehension
- Integrate central ideas in a meaningful way
- Improve their memory of what is read
- Gain a deeper understanding of the text
Summarization refers to the practice of extracting and rephrasing the most important information from a text. In summarizing, students create a concise overview that captures the key points and main ideas, allowing them to better understand and retain the material they read. They also learn to identify essential details and filter out irrelevant information. The process of learning to summarize benefits the learning process through:
- Improved comprehension
- Increased memory retention
- Heightened critical thinking skills
- Improved writing skills development
- Increased active learning
- Developing self-assessment tools
In addition to summarizing, there are several other ways to convey information succinctly including retelling, paraphrasing, and synthesizing. The key distinctions lie in the level of detail and the action of interpreting information. While summarizing focuses on extracting the main points of a text concisely, retelling aims to recount the story with more details. Paraphrasing restates information in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. Synthesizing combines information from multiple sources to create a new understanding or interpretation.
Summarizing Strategies for Less-Experienced Students
When exploring how to teach summarizing, it is often best to utilize different summarizing strategies for different learners. For new learners, it’s important to practice with short, accessible texts to help them grasp the most important information concisely. Some beginner-friendly summarizing strategies include:
- Identifying the main idea
- Underlining key points
- Using simple phrases to capture the essence of each paragraph
- Creating bullet points of important details
- Asking "who,” “what,” “where,“ when,” and “why" questions
Recognizing what's important in a text is crucial for effective comprehension because it allows readers to filter out unnecessary details. By focusing on the key ideas, central themes, and main points of the author's message, students can gain a deeper understanding of the material. The focused strategy of summarization also allows students to critically analyze what they have read.
Advanced Summarizing Strategies for More-Experienced Students
Students who are more experienced in summarizing should be taught varied methods to expand their knowledge and understanding. This can be achieved by incorporating graphic organizers that use visual prompts rather than text prompts. Students may still need some guidance throughout this new summary writing process.
As students summarize, they may encounter multiple levels of meaning or interpretation within a piece of writing. These are called layers and they occur when the surface-level narrative can be unpacked to reveal deeper themes, symbolism, social commentary, or personal experiences embedded by the author. To effectively discover these additional layers, students will need to apply critical analysis skills.
Overcoming Common Summarizing Challenges Students May Face
When learning to summarize, students experience a few common challenges. They may include unnecessary details, leave out crucial information by not sharing enough, or directly copy text from the source instead of writing in their own words. The key to summarizing is to identify the most important points and rephrase them in your own words. Here are a few ways to avoid these challenges when summarizing:
- Identify the main idea
- Select only relevant details
- Paraphrase by rereading to improve understanding
The Importance of Text Structures in Summarizing
Understanding multiple text structures aids in summarizing by allowing readers to identify the main ideas and key details within a passage based on how the information is organized. This enables them to extract the most important points and present them concisely and logically, mirroring the original text's structure. Knowing the text structure acts like a road map that can help them navigate and condense information effectively. It is also important to learn to recognize key transition words and phrases that are specific to different text structures. Recognizing words like "first," "next," "however," and "therefore" can further guide the identification of important ideas and the construction of a cohesive summary.
Summarizing Strategies: Practical Applications for Reading Comprehension
Summarizing is directly linked to improved reading comprehension because it forces readers to actively identify and extract the most important information from a text. As they do that, they also filter out irrelevant details and then rephrase the main points in their own words. This process acts as a check on comprehension by requiring the reader to synthesize the main ideas of a text. Some practical ways to use summarizing strategies for reading comprehension include:
- Chunking the Text: Break down longer passages into smaller sections and summarize each part individually. This helps manage information overload while building a comprehensive understanding.
- Identifying Main Ideas: Teach students to look for topic sentences, key phrases, and recurring themes within a passage to pinpoint the central ideas.
- Creating Bullet Points or Outlines: While reading, jot down key points and supporting details in a structured format to facilitate the summarization process.
- Using "Who,” “What,” “Where,” “When,” and “Why," Questions: Frame summaries around these key elements to ensure all essential information is captured.
- Paraphrasing and Rewording: Encourage students to rephrase the text in their own words to demonstrate comprehension and avoid simply copying phrases.
- Summarizing After Each Paragraph or Section: Regularly summarizing small chunks of text helps with active engagement and immediate comprehension check.
- Writing a Single-Sentence Summary: Challenge students to condense the main point of a passage into one concise sentence to focus on the most critical information.
Your Partner in Reading Comprehension
Voyager Sopris Learning®, the specialist in reading, writing, and math intervention, offers Step Up to Writing®, a solution of multisensory writing strategies for K–12 students. Their solutions also support teachers in understanding how to effectively teach students to summarize.
To learn more about writing strategies for the classroom, you can watch the recordings from Science of Writing Week on-demand at your convenience. Access expert strategies on mastering narrative and expository writing, The Writing Rope, and the reading-writing connection.
