Here are some photos from a unit I did teaching forms that go with summarizing.
First I taught what summarizing was --the general idea in a brief form....
I introduced synonyms such as: the main ideas, the key ideas, the gist of the story.
The poster shows how we webbed the process of summarizing. Note on the poster in the lower left how I added the different forms of the word; summary, summarizes, summarized, and summaries. I also added some adverbs used to summarize in the upper right.
The following charts I used to show how to pick just the key ideas and the language to use to express those key points.
Summarizing is a very difficult strategy for children to grasp. As teachers we need to offer repeated lessons with continual modeling. We also need to allot plenty of time for students to practice the language and the strategy of summarizing!
Teachers ask students to summarize constantly. What are some of your favorite ways to teach students how to summarize?