Free 2nd-6th Grade Summary Lesson Using a Graphic Organizer/Story Map and Book

I just wanted to give y'all another free lesson using a picture book, and since it is Halloween time I used a fabulous Halloween-ish picture book.  

This Summary Lesson is geared towards third (3rd) graders, but can be easily adapted to 2nd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grades.  I know that almost every grade has some sort of curriculum objective geared towards telling and writing summaries using a variety of text.

Therefore, classroom teachers and school librarians... this is a great and easy lesson for you! 

The lesson is all about using a graphic organizer to help retell and write a summary.  I love graphic organizers b/c they benefit many different learning types and they help with comprehension.

A child with a comprehension learning disability could greatly benefit from visual graphic organizers such as this one.. 

All you need for this lesson is a great book, or text of any kind, and this Story Map pdf.  How fabulous is that?  

To save or print out the lesson click here. 
To save or print out the Story Map pdf click here.

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 3^rd Grade-Summary lesson using a Story Map/Graphic Organizer

Written by/Copyright: Alohamora Open a Book http://alohamoraopenabook.blogspot.com/

Objective/What Taught:

Writing- Write summaries that include important characters, setting, events, and details.

Reading- Use a variety of before, during, and after reading strategies and processes to sustain comprehension through increasingly difficult texts in a range of genres:

Summarize Text passages-

Respond orally and in writing to fiction and non-fiction reading:

·                   Identify key words and phrases.

·                   Use details to construct a summary.

·       Refer back to the text to provide evidence for their thinking.

·       Include characters, events, and some details from the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

·       Identify the setting (where and when), plot, main characters, problem, and solution in a narrative text.

Materials Needed:

- SmartBoard (Can use the pdf on a Doc Camera as well, or just draw the Story Map on the board)

- Graphic Organizer pdf

            - Book: Tell Me a Scary Story… But Not TOO Scary! by Carl Reiner

Procedure/How Taught:

1. I want to tell someone about the story I just read but I don’t have a lot of time.  I can’t tell them everything, so what should I tell them?  SUMMARIZE the story.  Tell a shortened version of the story

2. But… How do I summarize?  What do I do?  Give bad example of summarizing. 

a.    Is this a very good summary of the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears- a child broke a chair.

1.    NO- it doesn’t tell us if it’s a girl or boy, or whose chair is broken, or where this chair was that it was broken.  It doesn’t really tell us very much of anything.

3. A GOOD Summary includes the most important things but it’s still a shortened version of the book. 
1. Then what are the important things that I should include when I SUMMARIZE a story?

                                          i.    Main Characters

                                        ii.    Setting- where the story takes place

                                       iii.    Events that happen in the Beginning, Middle, and End

4. We are going to read/listen to the author read the story: Tell Me a Scary Story… But Not TOO Scary by Carl Reiner. (A lot of the books have a CD with the author reading the story which is fun, but you can also just read the story aloud) 

5. Show the Story Map on the SmartBoard/Doc Camera/Board

6. During the story, I want you to be ready to help me with these 5 boxes so we can summarize the story when we are done.

1. Review what each of the boxes in the Story Map means.

7. Read/Listen to the story. 

8. Complete graphic organizer of characters, setting and what happened in the beginning, middle, and end.

9. Use the story map to verbally give a summary of the book to the students.

10. Using a graphic organizer like this Story Map can help us review the book and give a good summary of the story. 

1. Do you think we can do a Story Map for longer chapter books?
2. Can we do a Story Map for Non-Fiction books?
3. Can we do a Story Map for anything we read? YES!

11. Practice/review how we can verbally give a summary of the story using the Graphic Organizer.

How Assessed: Students will be able to complete a Story Map Graphic Organizer together as class and then give a good summary of the story using the Story Map.

Extension/Assignment: Have the students read a story on their own or listen to one you read.  Then have them complete the Story Map independently. 

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Happy Summary Lesson using a Halloween book teaching! 

MeganRuth