I am a third grade teacher, new to the grade level and to the wonderful world of CSAP. In planning and preparing for administering the tests, I realized that my students would be asked to summarize the passage they read. I thought about the difference between retelling and summarizing. I had a lot of experience with having students retell what they read on the DRA…enough to know that they need to tell me the whole story—every little detail. The more the better! From looking at the model responses shown in prep books and online at the CDE website, I realized that summarizing was quite different. I went out and purchased a book of writing lessons, complete with ideas about teaching the skill of summarizing.
The book provided texts for the students to read and walked them through steps that would lead to a well-written summary. I was pleased with my find and dove right in to teaching my students how to do it. I was so disappointed in the result! What I had thought would be a simple, helpful set of lessons was a disaster. Some students just melted down and couldn't even being to understand what to do. My higher readers and writers simply copied the information, almost entirely from the passages. I was so frustrated! I shared my concerns with my teammate, who lent me the book Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling, Skills for Better Reading, Writing, and Test Taking, by Emily Kissner . This book made me feel slightly better because it stated that students do not truly master the skill of summary writing until around the 7th grade. As 3rd graders, my students and I (AND the creators of my writing instruction book!) had very different ideas about what were the most important parts of each passage. To them, the most important parts were the same as the parts that they found the most interesting. They wanted to include their favorite parts, which were the extra details that really should be left out of a summary. While the information in the book helped me feel better about lowering my expectations for my students summaries, I am still frustrated because they have to do so many of them on CSAP and on the DPS Interim Exams.
Next year I will be teaching 4th grade. I will have to give two more rounds of CSAPs before the replacement goes into effect. I will spend time over the summer investigating ways to help my students write age-appropriate summaries.
Lavonne, I have had the same experience with second graders. It is hard for the students to differentiate between a connection or their favorite part and what is the main ideas. Sometimes I question if what we are asking of children is age appropriate. Even if it is not age appropriate it is what the district expects of us and the children and we have to instruct anyways.
ReplyDeleteLavonne,
ReplyDeleteLast year, or the year before, we did a book study on this topic. It was a very helpful book on the difference between a retell and summaries and how to best pedagogical methods to use to help your students with this hard concept.
I think it is hard sometimes for us as teachers to determine what is age appropriate. We need to understand that we don't always have to teach everything to a mastery level. Learning is an ongoing process that spirals every year.