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9th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 8 of 14

Summarizing Texts

Find the main ideas and put them in your own words.

What your child practices

Practices summarizing: grouping related ideas, separating important from less important information, paraphrasing and keeping the author's message.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: E1.5(D) · finding central ideas and summarizing in your own words

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Find the main ideas: topic sentences and key terms help.
  2. Leave out small details and examples. Group related ideas.
  3. Use your own words and keep the author’s message. Test it: would someone who hasn’t read it understand?

Example: Which belongs in a summary of a flood news story: what happened, where and the main effects, or every person’s quote? A summary keeps only the most important points. Every quote is too much detail. Answer: what happened, where, and the main effects

Summarizing Texts in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 8 of 14 in 9th grade English Language Arts, after Forms & Features and before Form & Composing.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A reader's summary changes the author's message. What should the reader do?

    • delete the text
    • reread and revise the summary to match the text
    • keep it as is

  2. Question 2

    A summary of a science article should keep which kind of information?

    • the title font
    • all the numbers in the tables
    • the key findings and why they matter

  3. Question 3

    A graphic organizer for a summary can be used to…

    • add extra detail
    • group ideas under headings
    • replace the text

  4. Question 4

    Which is a less important detail to leave out of a summary?

    • the main conflict
    • the solution
    • the color of a minor character's coat

  5. Question 5

    What is the best first step before summarizing a long article?

    • read only the last line
    • count the words
    • identify the main idea of each section

  6. Question 6

    Which sentence is a summary, not a detail?

    • Mr. Lee wore a red scarf.
    • The storm began at 6 p.m.
    • The story shows how a community works together after a storm.

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