THE VALUE OF TEACHING STUDENTS TO SUMMARIZE

EDU 600, Teach as Leader: Module Four

Choice One: The Value of Teaching Students to Summarize
July 25th 2012
Caitlin Piper
University of New England

THE VALUE OF TEACHING STUDENTS TO SUMMARIZE

The Value of Teaching Students to Summarize

Teaching students the skill of summarizing allows them to inherit a vital skill that can enhance
their overall academic performance. Summarizing installs a lasting understanding of essential topics
(Wormeli, 2005). To ensure students' ability to summarize effectively it is imperative for the instructor
to teach students how to approach this type of task. Students should be taught the skill of summarizing
through structured activities to provide clarity (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). Summarizing
should only be taught using texts that are appropriate for the students' learning level to reinforce
student understanding (Anderson & Hidi 1988).
There are proven valuable outcomes that summarizing gives to students, providing that they
know how to summarize correctly. According to Anderson and Hidi (1998) summarizing can ...help
students to understand text and even to recognize when the meaning is unclear (p. 26). Summarizing
also assists students in remembering information and allows them to develop and utilize higher level
thinking skills (Dean et al., 2012). Summarizing not only benefits students, it also benefits teachers.
When instructors effectively teach summarizing to students, they will receive solid and quality student
summaries (Dean et al., 2012). Quality summaries serve as an excellent resource for studying and
assessment preparation and results in proven results of higher test scores (Dean et al., 2012).
The skill of summarizing needs to be taught to students because they may not have prior
experience with this technique. There are a sequence of specific tasks to summarizing correctly.
According to Anderson and Hidi (1998), summarizing ...is based on material that has already been
written. The summary writer must include, what to eliminate, how to reword or reorganize information,
and how to ensure that the summary is true to the original's meaning. (p. 26) Summarizing can be
difficult because it varies significantly from other scholastic tasks, specifically from essay writing
(Dean et al., 2012).
Students can benefit from learning how to summarize through a rule-based strategy that breaks

THE VALUE OF TEACHING STUDENTS TO SUMMARIZE

summarizing into concise steps (Dean et al., 2012). This technique is beneficial for students because it
simplifies summarizing into a general process of sequence that a student can continue to use on future
summary tasks. As Dean et al. (2012) state, Students do not have to alter their thinking about how to
summarize as they move from classroom to classroom or grade level to grade level (p. 83). This
approach to teaching summary development is very structured and may be most beneficial to younger
learners.
The use of summary frames is another strategy educators can use to teach summarizing (Dean et
al., 2012). This method of teaching summarizing may be more useful than others because it is designed
to assist students in accurately summarizing a variety of different kinds of texts. Using a sequence of
questions, students are able to identify the most important aspects of a text to create a summary (Dean
et al., 2012). There are six approaches of frames to this technique (narrative, topic-restrictionillustration, definition, augmentation, problem-solution, and conversation), which presents the teacher
with a wide range of possibilities for summary frame activities (Dean et al., 2012). Having a vast array
of choices for an activity assists the teacher when choosing activities that meet the needs of multiple
intelligences.
For a more advanced approach to teaching summarization, teachers may implement reciprocal
teaching. This is an excellent teaching tool to promote active participation (Saphier & Gowler, 1997).
Reciprocal teaching allows students to learn and practice summarizing collaboratively through group
work with specific roles for each group member (Dean et al., 2012). Collaborate learning strengthens
classroom climate and students' development of social skills.
All of these strategies are valuable techniques that can be used to teach summarizing. The most
important aspect about teaching this skill is providing students with a variety of ways and opportunities
to learn how to summarize (Wormeli, 2005). This practice opens students minds to develop skills to
strengthen their ability to summarize and maximize learning.

THE VALUE OF TEACHING STUDENTS TO SUMMARIZE

References
Anderson, V., & Hidi, S. (1988). Teaching students to summarize. Educational Leadership, 46, 2628.
Dean, C., Hubbell, E., Pitler, H., Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction that Works Research Based
Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, Virginia: Mid-continent Research for
Education and Learning.
Saphier, J., & Gower, R. (1997). The skillful teacher; building your teaching skills. (5th ed.). Acton,
Massachusetts: Research for Better Teaching, Inc.
Wormeli, R. (2005). Summarization in any subject: 50 techniques to improve student learning.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.