Clearly explain the lesson to students, including what they should pay close attention to. You may want to create a worksheet that mirrors your lesson for children to complete at the end of the lesson. Use examples in your lesson of text being summarized.
Avoid blandly reading passages to kids, but rather add inflection, make your reading interesting and even exciting to students. Children will pay greater attention to a reading that is engaging than to one that is not, and they will be better able to find the main idea of the passage. This will enable students to better summarize what they have heard.
Pause periodically while reading to “think aloud” about the meaning of a word or a sentence. You can then prompt students to offer suggestions of another way, a summarized way, of saying essentially the same thing.
Create a question-and-answer session after you have read the passage. Write student ideas on the blackboard after prompting the class with questions, including, “What was the main idea of the passage?” and “What were the motivations of the characters?”