Year Level Bulletins

Year 2 Bulletin

English/Reading

Literacy: Interpreting, Analysing, Evaluating

Comprehension Strategy: Summarising

 

 

Learning Intention

To sequence the series of events in a text, identifying key details

 

 Learning experience overview

In this activity, students viewed a mentor text, ‘Girawu the Goanna’ a Dreamtime story, several times, and were asked to retell it in writing. They used the ‘Five Finger Story Sequencing’ strategy to identify what happened First, Next, Then, After That and Finally. Each finger is used as a prompt to provide more key details in the sequence.  The sequencing of the main ideas becomes the summary.

 

A summary is a shortened version of the original text which includes all the main ideas and important details, and is structurally similar to the original text.  It is an important skill that helps us when we are researching, gathering and presenting information. It is also one of the most difficult strategies for students to master. 

Retelling is the beginning stage of summarising, and orally restating what they remember about the text.

 

Students need to be able to:

  • Retell a shortened version of the text in their own words
  • Identify the main ideas
  • Use key information – words/facts/phrases
  • Take notes

Prompts/questions/responses

  • Helpful questions to ask when summarising (including retelling) are: 
    • Who?                    When?                 Where?                What?                   How?

OR

  • Language we could use when summarising:
    • The most important thing to know about ___________ is_____________
    • The story is mostly about ____________________________
    • The most important idea in this story is about _____________
    • The whole point of this story is ____________________
    • Another name for this story could be  _________________
    • The main idea of this story/text is _____________

 

What you can do now (to continue the learning at home from this experience)

Continue to encourage your child/ren to read for pleasure at home, and share their thoughts about the text with you.  Begin by asking them to retell the story, identifying the key points, being mindful of the sequence of events.  Use some of the question prompts, above, to help with their recall. Remind them of the importance of the order of events, and how that aids meaning.