The process of reading what a text says is concerned with basic comprehension by simply following the thought of a discussion. The focus is on understanding each sentence, sentence by sentence, and on following the thought from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. There is no attempt to assess the nature of the discussion and no concern for an overall motive or intent. Restatement generally takes the form of a summary, paraphrase, or précis.
Restatements should avoid the same language as much as possible to avoid plagiarism and to show understanding. Reading what a text says is common under a variety of circumstances:
- when learning the definitions and concepts of a new discipline,
- when there is agreement on the facts of a situation and their interpretation,
- when a text is taken to offer a complete and objective presentation, or
- when the word of a specific author or source is accepted as authoritative.
Answering this first question assumes that students can decode the words and read fluently enough to replicate the meaning intended by the author. To support the reading development of students who cannot decode or read fluently or comprehend sufficiently go to Reading Comprehension and find the appropriate assessments and interventions.
Summary means a short version containing the gist of something: a shortened version of something that has been said or written, containing only the main points. To read for summary, students need to have developed the following comprehension skills: determining important ideas, visualizing, synthesizing, fixing-up strategies, and asking questions. They need to know how to use the ideas with using the same language (paraphrasing and using synonyms)
The
above material is based upon or directly from the work of
Dan Kurland at http://www.criticalreading.com/
The
following are activities that build toward developing the
skill of summarizing:
Summarizing Activities
Circle the most important word or phrase in the sentence,
paragraph or text.
Underline the most important things told about a word or
phrase.
One-syllable word summary
Have students working in groups of three or four students,
develop a one-syllable word summary of the article.
Students may use only words of one syllable. This is a fun
activity and encourages the use of synonyms.
Highlighted
Reading for Middle and High School by Dr. Elaine
Weber
Purpose:
Engage students in print
Develop fluent scanning
Highlight most important information
Prepare text for substantive conversation
Materials:
A copy of the text
A highlighter pen
Planning:
Select an article or piece of text that is accessible to
all the students.
Identify the vocabulary that needs to be taught in advance.
Determine a context for the information that could frame it
for the students’ prior knowledge.
Consider what kind of discussion you want to come out of
the reading of the text.
Select the appropriate information to be highlighted based
on the goal for the discussion.
Map out the text paragraph by paragraph with prompts to
highlight the information.
Procedure:
Build the context for the reading by activating prior
knowledge. Have students find the vocabulary in the text
and highlight it as you give the definition. Move the
students to scan the text by telling them which paragraph
and what to highlight. (Like finding
Waldo)
Check out Paths
for Literacy Reading Comprehension
and
Reading Fluency
for
more strategies and assessment activities to support
restatement.