Gifted Bytes

A summary does not "retell" the story, but provides a brief and clear description of the main idea and key descriptors (not details). There are different strategies for teaching students to summarize text effectively. The 20-Word GIST (Cunningham, 1982) has been found effective for improving students’ reading comprehension and summary writing. The reader records a summary of the material and focuses on concisely summarizing the story using only 20 words. A summary is a snapshot of a text that cl