The "Three Post-Its" Approach to Reading

Using post-it tabs is a very non-threatening, risk-free, and fun tool to aid students in learning the important skill of summarizing!

What You Need:

3 post-it notes

index card 

child’s book of choice

What You Do:

Explain to your child that every story has a limited number of main ideas or important events, and that your job as a reader is to identify them. Help your child with this task by giving him a checklist:

• Is this event necessary to know?

• Does the next event depend upon this event taking place?

• Can the story be fully told without this event being mentioned?

• Does this event provide key information?

Take the index card and have your child write this checklist on it. This will sever as a helpful bookmark to remind him of the importance of identifying the main events.

Step 2

Give your child three post-it notes, and explain that at the end of his reading he will use them to mark in the book the three most important events. By giving him a limited number of post-its, you are challenging your child to consider what is significant and not so significant. Encourage him to refer to his bookmark after each selection.

Step 3

When your child has completed marking the important events, ask him to give you a summary of the story by only referring to the events he selected. Decide together if these events successfully summarize the story.