I Got Skills Linky Party

I'm joining up with my bloggy bff Amber at Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher for her Reading skills linky.

I love teaching reading and began teaching shared reading based on skills without a basal reader last year.  The skill I want to share with you today is summarizing.  This is always a difficult skill to teach my 3rd graders.  I was introduced to using foldables in my classroom several years ago and it has become much easier.  I like to use George and Martha to teach this skill.  If you haven't read this book, you are missing out!

It includes 4-5 short stories in one book which allows for me to use the same book all week.  The first day I read aloud the first story and model for the kids how I summarize.  Here are a few examples of organizers I have used in my classroom

From Wendy at One Happy Teacher

 From Jen at Runde's Room

After modeling how to write down something in each of the categories, I model how to take that information and write a brief 1-2 sentences about the story.  The next few days are spent practicing this skill using the other George and Martha stories with their reading partner.  My students use foldables during this practice. 

From Kathy at kbumreading

These are great because they can be used with any genre!  When working on summarizing, I try to focus on it during my minilesson for Reading Workshop, Shared Reading and in Guided Reading.  

Hope that these helpful hints make teaching this skill easier!