Summarize Text

When you summarize a text, you tell what the text was all about, identify the most important ideas, and retell the important ideas in your own words.

There are two ways that you can summarize. First, you can identify the 4 W's and 1 H of the text:

1. Who - who is in the story
2. What - what is the problem in the story
3. Where - where does the story happen
4. When - when does the story happen
5. How - How does the problem get solved

A second way to write a summary is by using main idea and details. The main idea is the most important thing that the text was about. The details give more information about the main idea. When you write a summary in this way, you begin with a topic sentence that tells the main idea of the story. Then, you use details from the story as evidence to prove that your main idea is correct.