How To Teach Students To Write A Summary
When we develop a summary we focus on the main points, the most important information and we eliminate the irrelevant ones. Knowing how to master this technique of understanding and textual production is essential for any student. We therefore decided to write this article on how to teach students to write a summary.
We remind you that it is a very complex technique, which is acquired with time and practice. This is why it is important that students start writing summaries from the early years of Primary School.
What does the summary technique consist of?
Before teaching children to draw up a good summary, we need to clarify this technique. Thus, according to José Antonio Moreiro González, professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid, the act of summarizing can be defined as:
Put simply, the act of summarizing consists of selecting the most important information in a text and re-elaborating it in one’s own words and in a shorter form. Here it is possible to modify and synthesize the content to be studied, representing and relating the main and secondary ideas to each other, in order to facilitate assimilation and memorization.
What cognitive operations does it involve?
According to Teodoro Alvarez Angulo – Professor of Didactics of Language and Literature at the Complutense University of Madrid – drawing up a summary is a complex process, which involves the execution of various cognitive operations, such as:
- Textual comprehension.
- Reflection on the content read.
- Information processing and ability to catalog them.
- Selection, organization and hierarchization of the ideas of the text.
- Reworking and rewriting of the most important part of the text.
- Production of a new text.
- Ability to follow the fundamental criteria of the text: coherence, cohesion, adequacy and correction.
Teaching students to write a summary: how?
In order to teach students to write good summaries, it is first of all necessary to explain to them that they will have to do a preliminary reading, with a quick skimming of the text, and then pass an understanding reading; that is, they will have to read the text, focusing on the understanding of each paragraph.
Then they will have to implement the underlining technique, distinguishing and selecting the main ideas, i.e. the most important information and the complementary information of each paragraph. They should then write down in the margins of each paragraph a keyword or short sentence describing the main ideas underlined.
Once these preparation steps have been completed, you can proceed with the summary. To do this, you must take into account what is underlined and try to express yourself in your own words or with simple words to shorten the text, and always avoid copying or paraphrasing. In addition, students should be explained that a good summary must have the following characteristics:
- It must contain all the main ideas.
- The main ideas of the text must be expressed in sentences that make sense.
- It must be made up of short, direct sentences.
- It must be objective, regardless of personal opinions on the subject.
- It must not include hyphens or asterisks.
To conclude, it is necessary to clearly explain to students that summarizing does not mean copying small parts of the text, but rather rewriting the main aspects of the content in their own words, so that starting from the main ideas, a clear text is drawn up, with as few words as possible. .
