How do I support students’ summary writing?

If we want to teach students how to synthesize ideas, we have to start by teaching kids how to summarize them. After all, a student can’t think beyond the text if he can’t think about the text.

That said, teachers at all grade levels and in all subject areas need strategies to support students’ summary writing skills.

One of our favorite strategies is the Information Pyramid. As implied by its name, this graphic organizer is a perfect tool to help students learn to summarize meaty information—whether it is a content-area concept or a domain-specific vocabulary term.

Duration: 7:45 | Grades K-12