What is the difference between synthesis and summary

Lesson 8: Summarizing Information In this lesson, students practice summarizing by extracting the Five Ws who, what, when, where, why and the H how from feature stories in local newspapers. The lesson could be adapted for use with other texts as well. Synthesizing takes the process of summarizing one step further. Instead of just restating the important points from text, synthesizing involves combining ideas and allowing an evolving understanding of text.

As with summarizing, this higher-order thinking skill needs explicit instruction and modeling. In her book Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading , Tanny McGregor provides examples of instructional sequences for synthesizing using common objects nesting dolls , prompts or sentence starters, and a spiral-shaped graphic organizer inspired by the notes written and passed by her students.

These activities provide the scaffolding needed to support students as they become familiar and then proficient with the skill and can be used with all types of text. Synthesizing This article provides an overview of synthesizing as a reading comprehension strategy and describes approaches for teaching and supporting students as they develop proficiency.

Into the Book: Synthesizing This section of the Into the Book web site provides definitions of synthesizing for teachers and students, learning objectives with videos, lessons, and a wealth of additional resources. This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. It is a mixture of reducing a long text to a short text and selecting relevant information.

A good summary shows that you have understood the text. The amphibia, which is the animal class to which our frogs and toads belong, were the first animals to crawl from the sea and inhabit the earth. The phrase "which is the animal class to which our frogs and toads belong" is an example, not a main point, and can be deleted.

The rest of the text is rewritten in your own words. Distinguish between main and subsidiary information. Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes, examples, illustrations, data etc. Simplify the text. Reduce complex sentences to simple sentences, simple sentences to phrases, phrases to single words. A synthesis is a combination, usually a shortened version, of several texts made into one. It contains the important points in the text and is written in your own words.

Focuses on both main ideas and details. Achieves new insight. Like this: Like Loading November 20, at pm. Sarah Elaine Eaton says:. Ripple Through Reading. October 24, at pm. Death to Worksheets The Reading Detective says:. August 27, at am. Follow Following. Learning, Teaching and Leadership Join 7, other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.