Summarizing Expository Texts

Abstract

Purpose: This article reviews the literature on students' developing skills in summarizing expository texts and describes strategies for evaluating students' expository summaries. Evaluation outcomes are presented for a professional development project aimed at helping teachers develop new techniques for teaching summarization. Methods: Strategies for evaluating expository summaries were applied in a professional development project in which teachers learned to teach fourth-and fifth-grade students to identify the macrostructures of short expository texts. Outcomes were measured by comparing results for students in experimental classrooms whose teachers received instruction in text macrostructure with results for students in control classrooms. Results: Students in the treatment condition produced significantly higher microstructure and macrostructure scores than students in the control group. Differences were greater between treatment and control groups than between fourth-and fifth-grade groups. Conclusions: This study provided preliminary evidence that treatment involving identification of expository text structures and use of graphic organizers to highlight the organization promoted greater growth in summarization skills than age-related development for fourth-and fifth-grade students.

Evidence‐Based Strategies for Improving the Reading Comprehension of Secondary Students: Implications for Students with Learning Disabilities

“…The multiple and complex structures of expository texts, as opposed to the usual single structure of narrative texts (i.e., story grammar), make comprehension challenging for many students with LD (Fagella‐Luby & Deshler, 2008; Westby, Culatta, Lawrence, & Hall‐Kenyon, 2010). The research suggests that teachers should use multiple strategies and different types of graphic organizers to help students comprehend expository texts.…”

“…The identification of the main idea requires certain cognitive processes and skills (e.g., WM) that are problematic for many students with LD. Explicit teacher instruction of cognitive strategies, like paraphrasing and summarization, has been shown to improve student recognition of the main idea (Afflerbach, 1990; Swanson et al, 2006; Westby et al, 2010). However, some students will need to be repeatedly verbally prompted to apply specific processing strategies before they become common practice (Bos et al, 1989).…”

Improving Clinical Practice: A School-Age and School-Based Perspective

“…M. Hall, Markham, & Culatta, 2005; K. M. Hall & Saby, 2009;Nippold & Scott, 2010;Ward-Lonergan & Duthie, 2013;Westby, Culatta, Lawrence, & Hall-Kenyon, 2010). In addition, helping children to "talk about" language, a metalinguistic component appropriate at school-age levels and earlier with appropriate scaffolding, is another positive element of clinical practice reflected in Scenario 1.…”

“…A. Hall, 2012;Westby et al, 2010). The "what I know" section from Ogle's K-W-L model combines before and during reading activities (McKeown, Beck, & Blake, 2009).…”

“…What we do know is that these aspects of language learning are critical for school success. At the macro level, intervention goals could be focused on developing students' abilities to use various subgenres of expository text (e.g., compare/contrast, enumerative, descriptive structures and, in this case, a cause/effect structure; Gajiria, Jitendra, Sood, & Sacks, 2007;Westby et al, 2010). Current thinking suggests that clinical practice should include exposing children to expository text as early as preschool so that they are more prepared for the deluge of content-area learning, couched in expository text, when they come to school (e.g., Culatta et al, 2010;K.…”