Year 5/6 Bulletin
Summarising a fiction text
Armadale Primary School
Summarising a narrative
To summarise a narrative by identifying what a character wants and selecting the events connected to that goal.
“Stories contain lots of events, but a summary doesn’t include everything. We’re going to decide which events matter by asking whether they connect to what the character wants.”
Students explored how to summarise a narrative by identifying what the main character wanted and selecting the important events that connected to their goal.
As a class, we revisited a familiar text and discussed the character's main goal. Students worked together to identify which events were essential to the story and which details could be left out.
To support our learning, we used the SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then) anchor chart to help organise our thinking and identify the key elements of a narrative:
- Somebody: Who was the main character (or characters)?
- Wanted: What did the character want to achieve?
- But: What problem or obstacle did they face?
- So: What did the character do to overcome the problem?
- Then: What happened in the end?
Using this structure, students practised identifying the most important information and combining it into a clear, concise summary.
We focused on the idea that a good summary does not retell the entire story. Instead, it includes the key events that explain the character's goal, the challenges they faced and the outcome.
Continuing the Learning at Home
Families can support this learning by discussing books, movies or familiar stories together. Encourage your child to use the SWBST strategy to explain the story in their own words.
Questions you could ask:
- Who was the main character?
- What did they want?
- What problem stood in their way?
- What did they do about the problem?
- How did the story end?
A challenge to try: Ask your child to choose a favourite book or movie and summarise it using five sentences, following the SWBST structure. These conversations will help students strengthen their reading comprehension, distinguish important events from minor details and communicate their understanding clearly.
Year 5/6 Team
Allira.Zeneli@education.vic.gov.au