Reading Strategy: Determine Importance

A story includes all kinds of details. When you read, you decide which ones are the most important. This helps you focus on what the story is all about.

Reading Strategy: Determine Importance
    How to Summarize

  • 1. As you read each part of the story, pay close attention to characters and plot. Notice who does what.

  • 2. Take notes about the most important events.

  • 3. In your own words, summarize each part of the story.

Strategy in Action

Here’s how one student summarized part of a story.

Look Into the Text

One cold winter day, a farmer was carrying two buckets of spoiled food from a restaurant to his pigsty. As he was passing a coat shop, he accidentally spilled some of the slop on the ground. Sour cabbage, rotten eggs, and fish bones scattered all over the ground. Ugh! Ugh! What a smell!

A farmer carrying spoiled food made a smelly mess outside a shop.

The shopkeeper, who happened to be standing inside the door, saw this and was furious. He rushed out, grabbed the man, and shouted, “You dirty beggar!”

The shopkeeper was angry.

“It’s probably not important to remember exactly how many buckets the farmer is carrying.”

“This part has many actions, so I focus on the most important event.”

Practice Together

As you read “The Clever Magistrate,” follow the steps in the How-To box to summarize the story.