Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

Remind students that summarizing means to tell the most important parts. Students' ability to complete this task successfully will help you understand how much they have learned. Then, each group is going to put its pictures in the right sequence and give a verbal summary so that the groups together summarize the whole story. The groups are going to have to use the pictures to help them summarize the part of the story that the pictures show. Then you are going to put them into groups and give each group some pictures from the story. Information in a story map will help them remember the most important parts of a story. First, they will help you complete a story map about Nate the Great. Tell students that they will learn more about how to summarize a story. Students should be familiar with the story element terms: character, setting, problem, main event, and solution. You may want to do a drawing and give the first summary as an example to students. They just have to tell what their important thing is and why they would not want to lose it.

It is my favorite toy, and I would never want to lose it.' Note that students don't have to tell every story about their teddy bear or describe it in detail.

For example, 'I have had my brown stuffed teddy bear since I was born. Tell students that they should only include the most important details in their verbal summary. Then, have students 'summarize' their picture-talk about the main details of their picture and explain briefly why they would never want to lose it. Ask students to draw a picture of something that is very important to them that they would never want to lose. Tell them that in this story, Nate the Great is going to help his friend find something that is very important to her that she lost. Guide them to understand that detectives use clues to help find missing things or people. Ask students what they think a detective does and write their answers on the blackboard. To engage students, tell them that Nate the Great is a detective in the story they're about to read. Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat If students are unfamiliar with these concepts, you will need to take some time introducing them. Summarizing also requires students to be familiar with sequencing events and determining importance. This lesson, which focuses on summarizing, assumes that students are already familiar with basic story elements including character, plot, and setting. (See the first lesson - Summarizing: Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia.) This is the second lesson in a set of summarizing lessons designed for primary grades. In this lesson, students summarize a story using a story map and picture clues. The lesson uses the book, Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. This lesson is designed to establish primary students' skills in summarizing a story.