Writing a Summary

Part of all students' homework each week is to write a summary of what they are reading. For some students, this may be a summary of the chapter book they are reading. For others, it may be a summary of a picture book they read at home. Since we have been working hard on how to write summaries at school, however, each child should be able to write about what they are reading. We have been practicing with fiction, using the anchor chart below.

Students need to identify who the story is about, <i>SOMEBODY. Then they think about what they WANTED. Characters never just get what they want, so there is a BUT something happened. SO, the character tries to solve the problem. THEN the story ends. We have found this to work really well for almost all fiction books and many non-fiction as well. If your child is still needing some support at home, ask them to tell you: Somebody Wanted But So Then Happy Reading!