Summarizing skills are made easy with this mini unit that focuses on strengthening this difficult, yet important reading comprehension skill. This pack has two components, first 64 pages of summary activities that help students practice summarizing nonfiction and fiction texts as well as a 42 slide PowerPoint presentation that is perfect to guide your lessons.

Start off your mini-unit with a Summarizing Pretest to assess how much your students know about summarizing different texts, passages, and paraphrasing. Then use the powerpoint to answer guiding questions such as:

What is a summary?
Why is summarizing important?
How do we determine importance?
How do we find the main idea?
How do we paraphrase?
How do we write a summary?
When do we write summaries?

Included is also some great displays you can use on your bulletin board or display in your classroom. Some ideas included are:

SUMMARY Word Display
BME (Beginning – Middle – End) Display
The 5 W’s of Summarizing
SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then)
SUM (Shortened, Use own words, Main Idea)

This pack includes printables such as graphic organizers that will help your student to organize their thinking and help summarize while reading, taking notes, and use vocabulary that helps them to summarize. There are two passages to help them practice their newly learned skill. It really is a comprehensive pack that will help you to teach this difficult reading comprehension skill.

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Common Core Strategies Covered
RI.3.2 How can I use key details from the text to explain the message, moral, or lesson of a story?

RI.4.2 Why is it necessary when summarizing the text to focus on the essential or main idea?
What information is appropriate to include in a summary?

RL.4.2 Why is theme important to the meaning of a text?
What are the components of an effective summary?

RI.5.2
Why is it important to consider multiple details and support them, when summarizing a text?

RL.5.2 Why is theme significant to the meaning of a text? Why is it important to understand the
characters’ motive and actions as it relates to the theme of a story? What makes a good summary?