USING THE GRAPHIC ORGANIZER OF MIND MAPPING TO TEACH GRADE 2 STUDENTS TO SUMMARIZE A STORY

Teaching Activity: Graphic organizer applied to teach grade 2students to summarize a story -------------------------------------------------------------- MAAPS Program Studies introduced me to the use of graphic organizers. For my lesson on summarizing, I used a graphic organizer call mind mapping as a tool to teach students to summarize a story. Mapping is a graphic organizer. It useful for summarizing information, it shows the overall structure of story and increase students’ abilities to memorize and remember. A Mind Mapping can be a modeling away to think aloud to find the main idea of a paragraph (Hogan and Pressley, 1997, p. 20). I teach Thai Language in Grade 2. The topic of the lesson I would like to explain is called “Reading and summarizing”. In my class, there are 63 students. They have different ways of learning. I have learned what kind of learning style my students are. I let students self assessment and assess by their friends. Moreover, I asked other teachers about my students too. When I taught students about summary, some of them learned very easily as Gardner call they have high linguistic intelligence. However, I would like to develop the rest students to help them reach the learning objective because my learning outcome was that all students would to be able to summarize the story. I used mind mapping to motivate students because my grade 2 students do not enjoy writing. They prefer to draw pictures, color and create their work by themselves. They are proud of themselves when they have the opportunity to choose whatever they are interested to do. They are happy and have fun. They will do the activity for a longer period of time, to work harder and more effectively at activities. I would like to share a kind of activity that I have applied in my class. Reading & Summary The story is “The bee and the dove” **Activities: 1. Students read the story “The bee and the dove” aloud together. 2. I ask questions to help them make a conclusion or summary together such as How many characters are there in this story? “Why the bee fell into the water?” “Who helped the bee?” “What happened with the dove?” “Who helped the dove?” “What is the result of the story?” While students were answering the questions, I was writing their answers on a big mind map that I made on the white board I give a prize to students who answer my questions. Modeling is important for young kids because it shows students a way to do their mind map and students make an effort to repeat the teacher’s model. This seems easy for them and they can complete their work. Modeling could motivate students to feel confident and become more responsible for their work. The Prizes keep motivate second grade also. 3. I taught students how to use Mind Mapping and point to the mind map I made on the white board (see attachment #1). I adapt standard mind mapping instruction like these; Start in the center with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colors. Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your Mind Map. Select key words and print using upper or lower case letters. Each word/image must be alone and sitting on its own line. The lines must be connected, starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker, organic and flowing, becoming thinner as they radiate out from the centre. Make the lines the same length as the word/image. Use colors – your own code – throughout the Mind Map. Use emphasis and show associations in your Mind Map. Keep the Mind Map clear by using radial hierarchy, numerical order or outlines to embrace your branches (http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wiki/Mind map). This instructional simplify I translate to Thai, and fit into my lesson 4. I let students practice mind mapping as away to summarize a new story by separating them into small groups and using cooperative learning to motivate them to work together positively. When they work cooperatively, they brainstorm while they work on Mind Mapping to share ideas and teach each other about what they have learned from the story. They improve in comprehension because some students might explain to their peer better than the teacher sometimes. 5. I walk around to help students, give them direction, encourage them and give feedback on Mind Mapping. Without feedback, students may not be sure that their Mind Mapping is a good summary of The story’s key points. 6. I evaluate students’ understanding by observation, checking students’ worksheet. The results that I find after lesson are: students more pay attention in my class, they more respond in their group activity, and even shy students can participate in this activity they share their ideas and the weak students can complete their work on time. Moreover, they wrote their work very well with a few collections. They can write the main ideas of the story on their Mind Mapping (see attachment # 2). Before I taught them to summarize with Mind Mapping, most of them just copied the story. They did not make a summary and some of them did not do anything (see attachment #3). “Mind Mapping” is a graphic organizer that I learned in my graduate studies applied activities in my class. It could be a way of working for other teachers as well. I will show my colleagues how my students progress. I believe that Mind Mapping is a useful graphic organizer for others subjects also for example; Mathematics, Social Studies, Science and English. ______________________________________________________________________ By Mrs. Walaiporn Phiphatphongphayuha Mrs. Walaiporn earned her Bachelor degree in Computer from Suan Dusit Rajabhat University in 2003. She has been teaching primary level Thai Language courses at St.Gabriel’s College for the past ten years. Source: http://www.sg.ac.th/go/research/actionResearch/GraduateProject.doc