Enhancing my Teacher Inquiry by Note Taking and Summarizing

This term I concentrated on note-taking and summarizing with my priority students.  I used the following strategies as suggested by Dr Alison Davis:

Highlighting
The students began by reading the section or paragraph of text.  They then highlighted what they thought are the most important ideas within the text.  Next, the students returned to the text and recorded keywords that related to the parts of the text that they have highlighted.  The students used their keywords to develop a statement that summarised the text.  [Davis, 2007].


Finding the key sentence in a paragraph

 In this activity, the students wrote what they believed to be the key sentence along with the reasons for their choice.  Through discussion with others, students shared their reasoning, gave and sought feedback from others, and decided on the effectiveness of their decisions. [Davis, 2007]

Sequence of main ideas or events 
In texts that conveyed information in a sequence, each idea was listed in sequence 1 to 4 as illustrated below and students recorded the main idea in order as they made their way through the text. [Davis, 2007]

My priority students prepared for their speeches. So they had to read /listen/watch make notes, summarize and write in their own words. Three of the five students were able to complete the tasks and delivered their speeches successfully.

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