Strategy for teaching Summarizing

Summarizing literature has always been a difficult concept for kids.  The problem is they usually want to write too much.  There are the few that totally miss the concept by naming a detail and leaving out the main elements needed to make a good summary.   I have been teaching the concept of Somebody.. wanted.. but ..so ..then.. for awhile.  But--today it hit me.  We are constantly using our colored pencils for making notes on texts, our highlighters for main ideas and identifying context clues for vocabulary--  I decided that this would be no different.  I would assign each part a color. 

 




After reading the book Grumpy Gloria, We discussed that sometimes the narrator was a main character in the story.  We used the "formula" and wrote the summary.  After the summary was written, we highlighted each part-- (colored pencils) and labeled it.  




This worked like a charm!  I read the Book Alexander and the Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day-- and the kids helped me write a summary using the formula-- and we labeled it.  My plan is to read Tattle Tongue tomorrow-- and let the kids Write their own summary and label the parts.   Hopefully, as we continue to write summaries the rest of the year they won't forget important key components!