Reading Thinkers Team: Summer's Summarizing Secrets to Finding the Heart of the Story

Meet Summer Salamander!

Summer Salamander the Summarizer, is a warm-hearted summarizer who believes every story has a heartbeat. She helps kids listen for it—and retell the tale without getting tangled in too many details.

As one of The Reading Thinkers Team, Summer’s reading strength is being able to say what a story was mainly about. She listens carefully, spots the big ideas, and retells what happened using just the important pieces—like a snapshot of the story.

Gather the important moments and leave the rest in the sand.
Summer Salamander

Why Summarizing Helps Young Readers

Summarizing teaches children to listen, think, and sort out what really matters in a story. It helps them:

Understand the big picture
Retell a story clearly
Build memory and sequencing skills
Prepare to discuss or write about what they’ve read

When children summarize, they’re organizing their thoughts like a storyteller, not just a listener.

Helping Kids Grow This Skill

Here are some ways to help children become great summarizers like Summer:

What Stays in the Basket?

Help children practice picking out the main events and essential ideas in a story—by pretending they have a special “Summer Salamander Story Basket” to carry only the most important parts home.

You might say:
“Imagine you’re holding a little basket. You can only take three (or four) things from this story with you. What will you keep? Remember, Summer Salamander says, “If it’s not part of the main idea, it doesn’t go in the basket!””

Sequencing Picture Strips

Provide a set of 3–5 images from the story (beginning, middle, end, key events). Have your child or student put these in the correct order. These could be magnets or cuts outs.

Then once they have placed them in the correct order, have your little learner describe each picture out loud using their own words to retell the story.

Story Basket Retell

Create a story basket to help children retell short stories. Fill a basket or bin with some small props, characters, or objects from a familiar story. After reading. Then let use the your learner(s) use the items to retell the story aloud.

Example: For Goldilocks, include a spoon, bear figures, a chair, picture of a bowl, etc.

The Dynamic Duo

Help your little learner identify beginning, middle, and end sounds using visual aids like Elkonin boxes. For example, draw three boxes and use small objects or counters to represent sounds in words.

Ox and Owl website icons with speak bubbles, introducing themselves.

Phonemic awareness is the key to unlocking the world of reading! It’s perfectly fine if some kids need a little extra time to get the hang of it. Make learning fun by tailoring activities to their developmental level and watching them grow step by step!

Summer’s “Story Scoop”– Tell It Like a News Reporter

Invite students to become kid reporters delivering the “story scoop” of a tale they just read.

Example: This just in! Little Red Riding Hood was saved from the wolf by a brave woodcutter in the woods!”

This activity adds drama, purpose, and structure to summarizing. Reporters don’t ramble—they get straight to the who, what, when, where, and what happened. It helps children focus on just the key points, building their ability to retell and summarize with clarity.

Props like a pretend news desk, toy microphone or paper “press badge” make it extra fun. You might even let them interview each other as “story experts.”

Think “Who, What, Uh-oh, Fix, All Done!”:

Who? (Who is the story about?)
What? (What did they want to do?)
Uh-oh! (What went wrong?)
Fix (What did they do to fix it?)
All Done! (How did it end?)

Example:
“Who? Little Red Riding Hood. What? She wanted to see Grandma. Uh-oh! A wolf got there first. Fix – a woodcutter came to help. All done! She was safe!”

For younger children, you might just ask for them to choose the three most important parts of a story—what happened first, next, and last—and draw or describe them.

Teach Summer’s Summary Sentence Starters

Summer Salamander’s summary phrases help kids focus on the main events. Teach children to use these easy phrases to retell stories clearly and concisely: