Summarizing
Summarizing involves indentifying the main idea in a paragraph or composing a concise statement of the central concepts from a longer passage, either orally or in writing.
As a strategy performed either during or after reading, summarizing helps readers to focus on main ideas or ther key skill concepts that have been taught and to disregard less relevant ones.
It may encourage deeper engagement with a text and encourage students ti reread as they construct a summary.
Summarizing taught either alone or as one of several strategies has been shown to improve comprehension and memory for what was read.
Summarizing is a complex activity that involves paraphrasing and reorganizing text information.
Research indicates that children,particularly struggling readers, benefit from explicit instruction on identifying main ideas as a step in the process of constructing a summary.