How to Teach Writing a Summary

Research has shown that comprehension is an outcome of a lot of factors. While that may be true, there is actually a lot of skill that goes into comprehension arrival. This is why strategy instruction is still very important. One of the most highly effective strategies to teach? Summarizing. Much research supports it, and has for a very long time (1989, 1992, 2014,  2021). But just how do we teach writing a summary to kids? More to the point, how do we teach kids how to write a summary that only includes relevant key details?  

“[R]esearch suggests that having the kids write various kinds of summaries is a pretty powerful way to build reading comprehension.”  

Tim Shanahan, 1/19/16 blog post

Anyone who’s tried this work with real kids knows that simply asking them to “pick key details” and to “eliminate redundant or irrelevant information” still doesn’t help them understand how to know what exactly is key and what exactly isn’t.  

Before a reader can write a summary though, they must arrive at the very first step: determining the main idea.

 A summary is simply adding relevant details to that main idea. 

Determining the right main idea is everything.  

This first step is where the reader considers the author’s purpose, the text structure, and, of course, the overall big idea the author wants to convey.

One of the very simplest and effective ways to arrive at the main idea? First come up with a gist statement. This is a widely used and very popular method because it works.  You might be hearing it mentioned a lot because the popular ThinkSRSD model uses it…but it’s not at all new.

Let’s break down how to help kids arrive at a gist statement: the very first step to writing a summary.

First, gist statements can be developed with anything. And there’s no reason to wait for the ELA block to do it. Any time kids read, view, or listen to something, they can develop a gist statement. And should. (More on that later.)

After something is read, heard, or viewed, it helps to use a framework to craft a gist statement. In general, it comes down to the 5 whys:  naming who or what it was about,  what they did, where or when, and why. This can be shortened up a bit or added onto, but in general, this is all it takes. 

Let’s take a very simple example of crafting a gist statement.

Everybody knows the story of The Three Little Pigs, so let’s start with that.

Here’s how to arrive at the gist:  Who or what was it about? Three little pigs. What did they do?  Build houses.  Where or when,? One day.  Why? To live on their own and stay safe from the wolf. 

And a higher level example? Let’s take a short story like The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Who or what was it about? Villagers. What did they do? Hold a lottery. When or where? In small towns in the spring.  Why? To determine who would be stoned.  Because: Longstanding tradition trumps reason.

See?  It works!

Once the gist statement is developed, choosing relevant key details to support it becomes so much simpler. It drives the details, so kids know from the get-go what is relevant.  Without that gist statement, they tend to grasp for straws.  That’s when we see kids add in irrelevant details.

Going back to The Three Little Pigs, it’s easy to see that one detail would be about what the first pig built his house out of and that the wolf easily blew it down, a second detail would be all about how the second little pig built his and the wolf just as easily blew it down, and a third detail would be about the third little pig who saved the day with his brick house.

I must point out that this example happens to have three important details. However, we don’t want to box kids in with stringent rules like this. Case in point, let’s turn to The Lottery. Some key details that support the main idea gist statement would be that the head of household chooses the ticket for each family, the lottery was an annual spring event, all family members of the “winning” ticket were eligible for stoning, many villagers disagreed with the tradition, and that some towns had done away with the barbaric event. 

From here, teaching writing a summary is a piece of cake!

With the gist statement as the guide, relevant key details are much easier to identify–especially when also coupled with the narrative story arc.  As I’ve said, text structure still plays an important role in summarizing.  In this way, relevant details from the beginning, middle, and end are  much easier to determine.

There’s no need for any other framework.  No need for Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then.  No need for First, Then, Finally.  No need for any such things.  Simply Who/What was it about, What did they do/what happened, where/when, and why.  The good ‘ole 5 W’s.  Bonus benefit?  It works just as beautifully for informational text, too!

When can I use gist statement development and summary writing?

Earlier I mentioned coming up with gist statements (and the resulting summaries) with anything heard, read, or viewed.  While this of course will happen a lot inside the ELA block, kids will learn this framework much better and more fluently if it’s done much more often.  

Consider doing it after viewing a video, listening to a podcast, or reading a text in social studies or science.  Craft a gist/summary after each and every read aloud.   It can even be done with new math concepts learned!  The more practice they get, the better they’ll become.  

A few tips to strengthen how teach writing a summary:

• Keep in mind that practicing first with oral summaries is important.  Kids have to say it before they write it (and think it before they say it).  So practicing aloud before putting pencil to paper is very important.  When we ask kids to go immediately from text to paper, we rob them of that all-important practice.  

• I like to post ½ sheets with the gist guiding questions along the top of my whiteboard with some space under each one.  That way, I can easily turn to that display at any time to quickly craft a gist statement. The small space left under each guiding question is to jot quick words to answer each one. Then a full gist sentence can be formulated.  If I want, I can then go on to talk aloud summary details with kids very easily. Having the guiding question cards on display at all times helps me remember to do it more often, and also serves as a helpful visual reminder for kids when they’re asked to create a gist and/or summary for their reading across the day.

• Start with shorter texts to start.  This automatically minimizes the amount of details kids need to sift through to lighten the cognitive load.  

• You can also use short videos for the same purpose–either from a video aloud or from a content study video.  Even well-crafted commercials work!  

• Show exemplar summaries and talk about why they’re so solid.  

• Provide feedback!  As kids get into writing a summary, teacher and peer feedback is so important. After all, if they never know what they need to do to improve, how can they get better at writing a summary?

And how do we go about teaching how to write a summary with nonfiction?

Nonfiction can be a little trickier. This is where text structure comes in even more heavily. In a narrative, it’s always going to be something along the lines of exposition, rising action, climax, falling, action, resolution. That’s every narrative. 

But nonfiction is different with many different structures–sometimes more than one structure in one text. For that reason, determining the main ideas and summarizing in non-fiction will be the topic of next week’s post. Be sure to stop back then for more!

So I challenge you.  What opportunities are coming up in your week that kids could craft a gist statement and then summarize?  Could you find a way to do it once for every subject area this week?  I’d love to hear how it goes!

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