Monthly Archives: July 2015

Written summaries show reading comprehension

Posted on July 29, 2015 | Leave a comment

If you want to improve a child’s reading comprehension, one of the best strategies is to ask the child to write a summary of what he has read.

A written summary can tell you, the parent or teacher, if the student understands what he has read. A written summary can also inform you about problems in the thinking of a student, such as an inability to identify main ideas, an inability to rank ideas, and an inability to sequence ideas meaningfully. If the writer has included subtleties in the writing, such as inferences and metaphors, a summary can tell you whether the student caught on or read right over them.

What should you be looking for in a student summary?

  • All the main ideas of the reading selection should be present in the summary. If an idea is missing, ask the child why he did not include it. Did he think it not important? Did it seem more like a detail than a main idea? Did it seem to be included in another idea?
  • On the other hand, some students find it hard to distinguish between a main idea and a detail. Everything is important to them. Long summaries can be evidence of a student who cannot separate main ideas from secondary ones. They need help with this skill.
  • If the reading selection ranked information, did the student recognize this, or did the student report on the information willy-nilly? Perhaps the student missed clues as to the importance of certain ideas compared to others. Perhaps the student was in a hurry and thought naming three ideas out of five was plenty. Most likely, the student will encounter the same problems again and use the same strategies unless you point out the faultiness of his thinking.
  • If sequencing is important in the original reading selection, the child must note this is his summary. There might be chronological sequencing or logical sequencing which makes sense only if it is summarized in the correct order.
  • When inference or figurative language plays a noticeable role in the original reading selection, the student should note this in his summary. He might say, “Although the writer did not come out and say this, he inferred that. . .” Or he might say, “It is important to note that Mercutio spoke in puns throughout Romeo and Juliet, bringing much humor to his scenes.”

Little children who cannot write yet can still provide oral summaries as a way to test their understanding of a reading selection.

The more you ask the student to offer summaries, the better he will become at creating them.

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Writing summaries of nonfiction

Posted on July 21, 2015 | Leave a comment

By middle school, today’s students are required to write summaries even though a generation ago this kind of writing began in high school. The Common Core promotes this kind of writing, as does students’ need to be able to write research papers at younger ages than in the past.

Summaries are written for many reasons:

  • Notetaking (listening to a lecture and discerning the important parts, or reading research and paraphrasing the important parts),
  • Understanding a reading passage (rewriting the main ideas to better understand them), and
  • Identifying the main points (turning an outline into a paragraph or two, or gathering information to use for later studying).

Students encounter two problems over and over when writing summaries:

  • How long should a summary be?
  • How much detail should be included in a summary?

Unfortunately, there are no clear-cut answers to either question, but here’s what I tell my middle grade students about summarizing nonfiction reading selections:

  • First, read the whole reading selection so you know what it is about and so you can judge what is important and what is not. If you don’t understand the selection, this is the time to ask questions.
  • If a reading selection has eight paragraphs, then (for middle grade students) its summary should have about eight sentences. Summaries are concise versions of the original, with major ideas included and most supporting details eliminated.
  • However, if the first paragraph or paragraphs are there only to hook the reader, then their ideas should not be included in the summary.
  • If a paragraph is a single sentence, perhaps it can be combined with another sentence in the summary. Or perhaps it is not important.
  • If a paragraph is more than five sentences, or if it contains a series of important ideas, then more than one sentence should be written to summarize it.
  • At the beginning, even before the topic sentence, the student should name the piece of writing being summarized and its author, and any particular ideas that would be helpful to the reader. The student writer should let the reader know that he is reading a summary. Sometimes this information can be included with the topic sentence.
  • Even though a summary is not an essay, a topic sentence is essential to help the reader to understand the summary.
  • A conclusion is sometimes not necessary if it would summarize the summary.
  • A good summary should be complete; that is, it should include all the important information in the original. If an author spends five paragraphs on subtopic A but only one paragraph on subtopic B, then the summary should include more information about subtopic A (about five times more) than subtopic B.
  • If the original text shows a point of view on a topic, that point of view should be replicated in the summary (letting the reader know that the point of view is that of the original author).
  • If the original text is factual and objective, so should be the summary.
  • The student writing the summary should not include his own perspective on the topic. Sometimes this happens unconsciously, for example, by using the word “only.”

How to write a summary or a nonfiction reading selection:

  • When I am teaching summaries to a student, I ask the student to write the main idea of each paragraph being read in the margin next to that paragraph or on a post-it note pasted next to the paragraph.  If the reading selection contains chapters, then I ask the student to write the main ideas of the chapter at the beginning of that chapter.
  • After each paragraph’s (or chapter’s) main idea is identified, the student needs to read all those margin notes and ask himself how they relate to the whole. Why did the author include each of those ideas in his passage? From that musing by the student often comes the topic sentence of the summary. That sentence is the most important one, from which all the others flow.
  • Information in a summary should be paraphrased. Occasionally, quotation marks can show the original words of the author being summarized, but direct quotes should be the exception, not the rule.
  • Summaries are usually written in the present tense.
  • If the summary is more than five sentences, remind the reader that this is a summary by using words like, “as author so-and-so says,” or “as article such-and-such relates.” If the summary is several paragraphs, a reminder to the reader that he is reading a summary should be included in each paragraph.

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, Including details in writing, paraphrasing, summarizing

How do you paraphrase?

Posted on July 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

In the 21st century, middle school students are writing research papers, so they need to know how to paraphrase. Quoting word-for-word is no longer the preferred way to present information in a research paper; paraphrasing is.

So what is paraphrasing? Paraphrasing is saying what someone else said (or wrote) using your own vocabulary and grammar. Paraphrasing turns antiquated writing into easy-to-understand modern writing; paraphrasing captures the essence of a writer’s ideas while ignoring his boring language; paraphrasing avoids plagiarism.

Paraphrasing is not the same as summarizing. In a paraphrase, the writer tries to capture all the important details of the original; in a summary, the writer leaves out most of those details.

How does a student paraphrase?

  • First, read the selection to be paraphrased. If you don’t understand every word and idea, read it again, look up words and ask for help. You can’t paraphrase what you don’t understand.
  • Carefully study the first sentence. Put it in your own words, being careful to use different vocabulary.   In particular, change the verbs if you can, using specific synonyms.
  • Now change the grammar. Try changing the order of the parts of the sentence so the ideas are the same, but they are not stated within a sentence in the same order.
  • Of course, you will need to use some of the same words in the original for which there are no synonyms, or for which alternatives would be cumbersome. If you are paraphrasing rules about how to play soccer, for example, you would need to use “soccer,” “ball,” “goal, “field” “play” and many other soccer-specific words.
  • Move through the selection one sentence at a time. As you get more experience, you can paraphrase ideas rather than sentences, combining ideas in several sentences in the original into one sentence in the paraphrase.  Or you can cut long, verbose sentences in the original into two or more shorter sentences in the paraphrase.
  • Paraphrases don’t need to be exactly the same length as the original, but all the important ideas in the original need to be stated in the paraphrase.
  • Read over your paraphrase to be sure it is clear to the reader.

Notice the difference between the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence and a paraphrased version:

The original words:   “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

A paraphrase: Sometimes, one group of people who have been politically connected to another group of people decide it’s necessary to go their separate ways and to become a new country. Out of respect for everyone involved, it’s a good idea for the country which is separating to explain the reasons why the break is necessary.

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Posted in clarity, English Writing Instruction, grammar, paraphrasing, summarizing

Dictating to children can expose reading and writing problems

Posted on July 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

Dictating—speaking words aloud for another person to write down—is a great way to vary reading and writing instruction and to gain insight into a child’s spelling, punctuation and writing abilities. It can show many kinds of errors which the parent might not be aware of.

3rd grader writing an essay.

  • Spelling errors might indicate that rules such as using a silent e at the end of many long vowel words, or doubling the consonants in CVC words when adding suffixes, have not been learned yet.
  • Handwriting problems might show that the child still mixes up b and d or p and q. Or the writing might show that the child does not make ascending lines go high enough, or descending lines go low enough.
  • Capitalization and punctuation errors could mean that a child doesn’t remember to start sentences with capitals or that he is unaware of the rules for proper nouns.
  • Lack of knowledge of sentence punctuation might show that a child needs more practice using commas, quotation marks, periods, question marks and exclamation points.
  • Certain letters written incorrectly might indicate a hearing problem or confusion over which sound is associated with which letter.
  • If some letters in the same word are written with large spaces between them, and others are not, or if there are no spaces between words, the child could be confused about what a word is and how a word is demonstrated in print.
  • Homophones spelled incorrectly could mean work on the various ways to spell its and it’s, they’re, their and there, and other sound-alike pairs is needed.

The dictating parent should use only words that the child is familiar with. Sentences should be short and clear. The dictating parent should tell the child how many times the sentence will be repeated, if at all, to be sure the child pays attention.

If there are several kinds of errors in the child’s writing, I would not tell the child that. Mention one thing to work on in the future. In the back of your mind, make a mental note of other ideas to work on.

Dictating from time to time is an informal way to assess learning.

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Why use complex sentences?

Posted on July 1, 2015 | Leave a comment

In English, we have three types of sentences: simple, compound and complex. Each is better in particular situations.

Complex sentences join an independent clause with a dependent clause. These sentences are used to show a particular kind of relationship—usually a stronger idea joined to a weaker idea, or a controlling idea joined to a secondary, less important idea. Yet sometimes the independent clause is the weaker or less weighty idea compared to the dependent clause.

girl writing and thinking

Why are complex sentences used?

  • Complex sentences show relationships between clauses, such as cause and effect, contrast, and time relationships. For example, I took a walk because I need exercise.  Or, although my brother likes peaches, my sister prefers blueberries.  Or, Daniel headed home as soon as the movie ended.
  • Complex sentences can mimic the complicated thinking required to understand certain kinds of ideas, such as logic. Or, they can replicate the patterns of thinking of a deep thinker.  For example, if A is less than B, and if B is less than C, then A is less than C.  Or, the detective figured out that Morgan was the murderer because Morgan had a motive, even though his girlfriend, Emma, provided an alibi.
  • Complex sentences can force the reader to focus on one part of a sentence (one idea) rather than another part of a sentence.  For example, the Supreme Court–especially Justice Scalia–disdains creating law by its decisions since enacting laws is the job of Congress.
  • Complex sentences can gather small choppy sentences into more graceful, longer sentences.  For example, Dad grilled the chicken.  Mom mixed the salad.  The children set up a croquet game.  Later they would play.  First they would eat.  Joined together these tiny sentences become While Dad grilled the hotdogs and Mom mixed the salad, the children set up a croquet game which they would play after they ate.
  • Complex sentences can form the skeleton of informal, cumulative sentences which are patterned on the way people speak. For example, Jack said, “I expect a storm because the clouds are building up, which is a sure sign a thunderstorm is coming on hot, humid Atlanta summer afternoons like this one.”

Complex sentences can begin with the independent clause or the dependent clause; the choice belongs to the writer. Most children start with the independent clause, adding the dependent clause as they think through their ideas. Usually children limit themselves to only a few types of dependent clauses: adverbial clauses beginning with “because,” “after” and “when.” Almost never do they use relative pronouns to create complex sentences.

How can you encourage children to use complex sentences with more variety?

  • For younger children, I prepare worksheets with lists of two sentences needing to be combined. I suggest the word that needs to link the sentences, and they must write the new sentence.
  • For older children, I write a list of subordinate conjunctions from which they can choose in order to join sentences in a list which I provide. I might stipulate that half the sentences need to begin with the subordinate conjunction to force them to start sentences with the dependent clause.
  • When I am working with a group of children, I have a “spelling” bee, asking students to create a complex sentence using a particular subordinate conjunction.

Once children learn to use complex sentences, they need to be warned about overusing them. Too many complex sentences can make writing difficult to follow. So can the number of dependent clauses. Even though the number of dependent clauses which can be attached to an independent clause is unlimited, using more than two usually muddles meaning. Encourage students to limit dependent clauses to one or two per sentence, and to mix up complex, compound and simple sentences for variety.

I have been told that some languages do not contain complex sentences, that in those languages, if ideas are joined, it is by words like “and” and “but.” In those languages it is normal to show equality of ideas but not inequality. Just like having many English verb tenses makes English a richer yet more difficult language, so does having complex sentences.

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Posted in complex sentence, extended sentences, grammar, sentence structure

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