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Teacher Resources by Grade
|1st - 2nd||3rd - 4th|
|5th - 6th||7th - 8th|
|9th - 10th||11th - 12th|
Guided Comprehension: Summarizing Using the QuIP Strategy
|Grades||3 – 6|
|Lesson Plan Type||Recurring Lesson|
|Estimated Time||60 minutes per session|
- Define and understand the QuIP strategy
- Learn the process of note taking
- Summarize information gathered through research into paragraphs
- Work cooperatively and then independently to apply the QuIP strategy when reading a text
- Reflect on the summarizing strategy and how it helps to improve their reading comprehension
Stage 1: Teacher-directed whole-group instruction (40 minutes)
|1.||Explain the strategy. Explain to students what it means to summarize their reading. Since we do not always remember what we read, nor do we need to remember every detail of what we read, emphasize the importance of understanding the main ideas. Ask students if they have ever read anything that prompted them to want to learn more. Explain that you are going to teach them a strategy to help them summarize their reading into paragraphs.
|2.||Demonstrate the strategy. Display the QuIP chart with your questions for students to see. Explain to students (if they don't already know) what a "source" is. Reread your questions aloud and explain how you will go about answering them.
|3.||Guide students to apply the strategy. Have students help you fill in the "Answer" column for the questions on the QuIP chart. For example, you might want to read aloud Young Harriet Tubman: Freedom Fighter by Anne Benjamin and Ellen Beier and ask students to help you record the important information that answers the question, "What was Harriet Tubman's childhood like?"
Your finished chart might look something like this:
|4.||Practice individually or in small groups. After you complete the first paragraph from the QuIP chart, ask students to turn their charts over and write a paragraph for the second question on the chart. You may also choose to have them work in small groups to complete this task. When students are finished, allow them to share their paragraphs aloud or with their peers.
|5.||Reflect. Gather students as a whole class to discuss how using the QuIP chart helped them to organize information and to summarize what they read. Discuss how this strategy might help them in other areas or in other situations.
Stage 2: Teacher-guided small groups and student-facilitated independent practice (40 minutes)
Before beginning Stage 2, students must be divided into three instructional-level groups. Students with similar instructional needs should be grouped together. This does not necessarily mean that students in each group are on the same reading level. Instead, they may have similar needs for comprehension instruction (e.g., students who have trouble making inferences or students who need extra practice making connections between texts).
Students are working in three different areas during this stage:
- Teacher-guided small-group instruction
- Student-facilitated comprehension centers
- Student-facilitated comprehension routines
Classroom management is at the discretion of each individual teacher. You may want to assign students to small groups and set up a rotation schedule, or you may want to allow groups of students to choose their own activities. Regardless, each group of students needs to visit the three areas at least once in the three-day period.
|1.||Teacher-guided small-group instruction. Choose one group to begin with you as follows:
|2.||Student-facilitated comprehension centers. Students may be assigned to centers or choose activities on their own.
|3.||Student-facilitated comprehension routines. Working in small groups, students engage in three different literacy strategies. Students should already be familiar with each of the strategies and have practiced them over time. For more information, review the Summary Sheet or refer to the text Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3–8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen.|
Days 2 and 3
For Days 2 and 3, pick up where you left off the previous day. The suggested time for each session is 60 minutes, however, since the group on the first day only had 20 minutes in small groups, you may want to meet with them for another 20 minutes and then switch groups for the last 40 minutes. The rotation should continue until all three groups have visited all three areas. On Day 3, students will spend 40 minutes in small groups, leaving 20 minutes for whole-group reflection and discussion (see Stage 3).
Stage 3: Whole-group reflection (20 minutes)
|1.||Talk to students about the summarizing comprehension strategy that they have been learning. Ask students to tell why and how using a QuIP chart helped them summarize what they read.
|2.||Give students time to share the activities they completed in the student-facilitated comprehension centers.|
- Adapt this lesson and have students practice the summarizing strategy with other texts. With continued practice using the QuIP chart, students should be able to apply the strategy independently when reading.
- Access and use other lessons based on the Guided Comprehension Model to teach additional comprehension strategies:
Guided Comprehension: Evaluating Using the Meeting of the Minds Technique
Guided Comprehension: Knowing How Words Work Using Semantic Feature Analysis
Guided Comprehension: Previewing Using an Anticipation Guide
Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal
Guided Comprehension: Monitoring Using the INSERT Technique
Guided Comprehension: Self-Questioning Using Question-Answer Relationships
Guided Comprehension: Visualizing Using the Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy
- Assess the student's completed QuIP charts and the paragraphs the student wrote using these charts.
- Did the student correctly complete the QuIP charts?
- Did the notes that the student wrote help to answer the corresponding questions?
- Are the questions valid and answered using appropriate sources?
- Do the completed paragraphs answer the intended questions and are they based on the notes from the QuIP charts?
- Did the student accurately summarize the reading?
- You can also ask students to reflect in their comprehension journals about the comprehension strategy of summarizing and their experiences using the QuIP chart.