Summarizing Teaching Resources
Teach students to summarize fiction and non-fiction texts with printable worksheets, graphic organizers, anchor charts, digital activities and more teaching resources created for your elementary classroom.
Designed by teachers, for teachers, the resources in this collection are aligned with both TEKS and Common Core curriculum standards. Each resource has undergone a careful review by a member of our expert teaching team to ensure they help students build foundational literacy skills.
You'll find editable versions to easily differentiate your instruction for individual students, plus a variety of options to make lesson planning easier this school year so your students will be able to identify the main idea of a text, draw inferences, remember key details and more.
New to teaching this portion of the English curriculum or just looking for fresh and engaging ways to teach students how to summarize paragraphs and articles? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is Summarizing? A Kid-Friendly Definition
Summarizing is an important reading comprehension strategy for kids to learn, but are you looking for ways to explain what it means to your class? Try this kid-friendly summarizing definition!
Summarizing is a way that we retell the main idea and key details from a story in our own words. When we summarize, we are able to share a large amount of information from a paragraph or article in a shorter version.
Why Is Summarizing Important?
Learning to identify the main idea and key details in a text helps young readers better understand what they have read and retain the information more effectively.
From there, summarizing helps students develop their writing skills, requiring them to synthesize the information they've learned and present it clearly and concisely in summary form.
Teaching Students How to Summarize
Before students learn to summarize, they typically learn to retell a story — recalling and describing the key events and details of a story in the order they occur. Summarizing is related to retelling, but it's a more nuanced and advanced skill that kids develop later in elementary school.
To summarize an article or a paragraph, students need to learn to choose details carefully rather than describing the story or paragraph in full. They need to condense just the most important information from the story into a brief overview or synopsis called a summary.
They also have to select and prioritize information so they can present it concisely in a way that makes sense to the reader.
When summarizing, students may complete one or more of the following:
- Recount the text in their own words
- Identify the main idea, topic or purpose
- List key words or phrases
- Identify structural elements of the genre
What Is SWBST? The Handy Acronym Explained
Using the SWBST process can help students create their summaries and serves as a great mnemonic when teaching reading comprehension. The steps in the SWBST process are:
- Somebody
- Wanted
- But
- So
- Then
Using these words, students can break down a paragraph or story into its key elements, working through the main character (somebody), the what (what they wanted), the conflict (but), what happened as a result of the conflict (the so) and wrapping up with the conclusion (then).
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Novel Study – Chapter Summary Worksheet
Reflect on a chapter in a class novel using this one-page worksheet.
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S.W.B.S.T. Summarizing Graphic Organizer
Use this printable SWBST strategy graphic organizer with students to write a summary for a fictional piece of text.
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Five Finger Summary - Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer for students to use to summarize a fiction text.
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Design Your Own Book Cover Worksheet
Design a new book cover and summarise a book using this one-page, printable template.
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Nonfiction Summary Checklist
Give your students a checklist when summarizing nonfiction texts to make sure they include everything required.
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Summarizing Nonfiction Graphic Organizer Pack
Help students summarize nonfiction texts with this set of graphic organizers.
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Paired Passage Worksheets - Thunderstorms (3-4)
Use paired passages to help your student practice applying reading comprehension strategies.
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Summarizing Fiction Task Cards
Guide students along their summarizing journey with this set of Fiction texts on task cards for students to summarize.
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Summarizing a Story Graphic Organizers
Help students remember the fundamentals of summarizing a story with this set of fun graphic organizers.
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120 Comprehension Strategy Question Cards
A set of 120 open-ended question cards to help students apply comprehension strategies when reading.
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Super Six Reading Comprehension Strategies - Question Mats
A set of question mats to use when working with the Super Six reading comprehension strategies.
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How to Summarize Fiction Mini Book
Explore the important factors of summarizing a fiction text with this student mini-book.
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How to Summarize Nonfiction Mini Book
Explore the elements needed for a good summary of nonfiction texts with this How to Summarize Nonfiction mini-book.
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Color-Coding Summarizing Nonfiction Text Worksheets
Practice summarizing small nonfiction texts with this fun color-coding set of worksheets.
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Summarizing Fiction Poster Set
Help students remember what to include in a summary of a fiction text with this easy to use SWBST acronym.
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#SUMitUP Summarizing Activity
Summarize fictional text through this whole-class station activity.
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Summarizing Nonfiction Task Cards
Guide students along their summarizing journey with this set of nonfiction texts on task cards for students to summarize.
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Summarizing Fiction Slide Deck
Build summarizing skills with fiction texts using these teaching slides.
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Inherited and Acquired Plant Traits - Reading Passage
Read and learn about inherited and acquired traits in plants with a printable reading comprehension passage and worksheet.
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Curious Creature Book Review Template
Create a curious creature-themed book review during Halloween or any time!
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Reading Response Template – Summarizing
Practice summarizing a piece of text with this reading response template.
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Book Review Worksheet
A book review and summary card for comprehension learning.
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Comprehension Task Cards Summarizing
Practice summarizing text with this set of event-specific task cards.
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Summarizing Teaching Slides
Teach students all about summarizing with 15 teaching slides of summarizing goodness.
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Color-Coding Summarizing Fiction Text Worksheets
Practice summarizing small fiction texts with this fun color-coding set of worksheets.
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Super Six Reading Comprehension Question Cards
Help students with six different comprehension skills with this set of super 6 comprehension task cards and mats.
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Summarizing Nonfiction Bookmarks
Learn about how to summarise nonfiction texts with these printable bookmarks.
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Summarizing Nonfiction Teaching Slides
Build summarizing skills with nonfiction texts using these teaching slides.
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Summarizing Nonfiction Interactive Activity
Help your students easily summarize nonfiction text with this interactive activity.
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Summarizing Poster Set
Learn about how to effectively summarize a piece of text with this classroom poster set.
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Read Across America Banner - Book Review Template
Read and review your favorite books during Read Across America week with a printable Read Across America book review template.
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Sloth-Themed Book Review Template
Use this sloth-themed book review template to write about your favorite book.