Lesson Plan for Literacy Tutoring

Tutor: Molly Martindale

EDR 524

Topic:

Amish Culture or Gymnastics

Learning Objectives:

The student will be able to summarize important information verbally when reading. The
student will be able to synthesize important information when writing a concise summarize.

Lesson Title:

The Importance of Summarization

Overview:

Maia has had some struggles with summarizing what shes reading. When summarizing, I
notice that Maia uses superficial details, and over simplifies a summarization of what shes
reading. Rather than including specific important details, she brings up an interesting fact that
she recalls. For example, Maia focused on the fact that Simone Biles was taken from her birth
mother because of a substance abuse issue, rather than the fact that Simone Biles was in the
foster care system for much of her life and this shaped who she is as an athlete. During this
lesson, the goal will be to focus on how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to
ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a way that can be
meaningful and connected to real-life meaning (ex: When Simone Biles failed her first
gymnast match, she realized she wanted to achieve her dream even more. How can this
theme be related to your own life? etc.).

Materials Needed:

Books, laptop, pen

Procedure:

Reading: Simone Biles Biography or a short Juvenile book about Amish Culture
The teacher will give the student the option of continuing to read from Simone Biles biography,
and finish Chapter 2. Both the teacher and the student area also bringing a few Amish books,
because the student has expressed her interest in learning more about the Amish lifestyle.

The student will read aloud to completion of the chapter, or short picture book.

After reading, the teacher will ask the student to summarize what the book/chapter discussed. If
the student needs direction, the teacher will take out a piece of paper and try writing down key
ideas or vocabulary present in the reading. The teacher will model how to use post-it notes to
identify important information in the text and how to connect these ideas in a summary
paragraph.

The teacher will discuss how to organize information extracted from the text, and how to relate
that information to comprehending the whole text. For example, The teacher will pose a
question like: why is this individual piece of information important when summarizing a text?

The teacher will also explain that only important information should be selected,rather than
extraneous/interesting facts. The teacher will provide the rationale to the student that although
interesting facts help toward understanding a subject, they are not necessarily central to a
concise summary. The teacher will also contrast the differences between judgements and
opinions, and key information that is necessary to overall understanding of the text.

The teacher will demonstrate this by finding an example of an important central fact, and an
example of an extraneous fact that is simply interesting to readers within the text the student is
reading. The teacher will first model this practice, and guide the student in practice in
collaborative practice to find examples of both types of information. The teacher will then ask
the student to summarize independently on the next book/chapter that is read.

Writing: Magnet Summary Box

The teacher will introduce the purpose of this study to the student by explaining that its
important to include essential vocabulary words when summarizing a topic, staying on topic,
and using concise sentences that discuss the most important aspects of a topic. The teacher
will explain that good writers often engage in writing exercises-much like we build our muscles
by working out (in Maias case, gymnastics). The teacher will also introduce the idea that writing
can be fun, and that good writers constantly improve their writing and use key vocabulary in
their writing.

Due to the fact that the student has had difficulty with starting the writing process, the teacher
will introduce several magnet summary boxes about things that the student enjoys. The teacher
will ask the student to then choose which topic interests her more and ask her to write a brief
paragraph using all/most of the vocabulary words in her summary of the magnet word (topic).
The boxes will be as follows:
Balance beam Flexible Vault Rings

Strength Olympics Gymnastics Parallel bars

Performance Tumbling Floor Handspring

Horse drawn carriages Farmers Modest

Religious Rural
Pennsylvania Amish No Electricity
Plain Family

Word Study: Word Whomp

Objective: The student will be able to synthesize words from a list of letters.

The teacher will introduce this game by talking about the malleability of words and letters.

The teacher and student will play the game Word Whomp on the computer, which is a game
that gives six random letters, and the player scrambles them to create multiple words.

http://www.pogo.com/games/word-whomp?pageSection=ag_list1_pl_whomp2#game

Alignment to Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.2.

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details;
provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

Resources:
Dictionary Definitions
Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Definition of Summarize. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/summarize on March 3, 2017.
 Magnet Word Summary Tables
Grant, K., Golden, S., and Wilson, N. (2015). Literacy Assessment and Instructional Strategies.
Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks: California.

NYS ELA Standards

NYSED. Common Core NYS ELA Standards. Retrieved from
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/common_core_standards/pdfdocs/p12_common_core_learning_s
tandards_ela.pdf on March 2, 2017.

Word Whomp Game

Pogo.com (Word Study)

Teacher Leader Notes:

Common Misconceptions:

Differences between summarizing, and telling all details in a text. The student needs to be
aware of the idea that summarizing doesnt necessarily include all facts/elements, but rather
those that are most important.

Academic Language:

Summarize: to make a summary of; state or express in a concise form (Merriam-Webster)

(Blooms Taxonomy Level-Comprehension).

Key Vocabulary Words:

Summary: a comprehensive and usually brief abstract, or recapitulation of previously stated

facts or statements.

Magnet word: the topic of a summary table (see above).

Concise: expressing or covering much in few words; brief in form but comprehensive in scope.