Steps to Comprehend and Summarise a Text

Understanding the text, learning new words, and reading quickly are essential parts of comprehending what the student is reading. It takes a lot of work to understand a text when someone reads it. The process doesn’t stop when reading the text is over. The ability to comprehend meaning becomes important here. It means being able to figure out what a passage means and using critical thinking to solve problems that come up based on the text. On the other hand, text summarization is a way to cut down unnecessary details and accurately sum up long texts while highlighting the parts that have the most critical information and not changing the overall message. Both of these skills are important for students to learn.

What is meant by Comprehension?

Let us define comprehension. The Latin word comprehension, which means “a seizing,” is the source of the English word “understand” or comprehend the meaning. Understanding a subject means taking in information and using it to build your knowledge. When you think about a concept or topic, you understand it. Your roommate always dates models. Try to figure out why this is. It’s hard to understand these things all the time!

Why do you Need to Improve your Comprehension Skills?

The benefits of having a strong understanding ability are too many to list. It will help you not only in English class but also in any other classes. You will be able to use these skills in both school and work because they are based on real-world skills and the critical ability to comprehend the meaning. 

How to Improve the Ability to Comprehend?

Read aloud and analyse to improve your reading skills and comprehend the meaning. Reading a fictitious story or a report aloud is a beneficial method to foster natural, calm, and confident reading. As you read more, you will learn how to use punctuation, emphasise words, and speak in different ways. Remember that the idea is for you to engage with studying and learning that material rather than just watching it. For summarizing the text, you need to find out the keywords in the text. Critical thinking would help you to find those important words and you can easily summarize the gist of the text.

Practice is the Key to a Better Understanding

Comprehension skills can only be honed if you practise. The more you read, the faster and better you will be able to comprehend the meaning of the texts. As a parent, you should encourage your child to read for pleasure outside the classroom. Make sure to pick a few books that your child likes from a nearby bookstore or library. It is much easier for your child to understand a story if they are interested in the subject. Students who practise reading outside of the classroom find it easier to understand difficult text in class and on tests. You can take a passage or excerpt from a book and summarise the following text using your enriched vocabulary as a result of your wide reading exercise. 

What is Summarisation in Simple Words?

This is a summed-up version of an original piece of writing, which is usually a lengthy essay or a whole book. One-third of the original text is the typical length of summaries, but they can be longer or shorter depending on the content and necessity.

What is the best way to Improve Summarising a Text?

• The Keywords are needed to get your Summary Correct

Many students do not understand how to summarise the text that does not exceed the particular count. Use keywords from the original text to elaborate briefly on the topic so that the gist of the text is clearly understood. You can try graphical aids or use questions and answers based on the text to understand the essential points of the text.

• Repetitive Reading Practice will help you Summarise Faster

Students can learn a text better if they read the same text repeatedly. It helps them to focus on the key issues of the text. It helps them understand the meaning of the text. In brief, it gives them a clear idea of how to summarise the text faster.

• Use a Reference for Summarising

Students can take help from a ready-made summarised text. They can look up the method and understand the idea behind summarising. It will not only widen their scope of reading but also learning at the same time. For a first-time learner, a reference to a pre-summarised text would help to understand the technique of summarising.

• Make a Comic Page

Graphic novels and comic books often use images and words to relate to the main storyline. These comic pages can be helpful in understanding the task of summarising a text. Also, one can summarise the comic stories as well.

Conclusion

Students can improve their writing skills a lot if they can understand and summarise what they read. Reading a comprehension, analysing it to understand the keywords, and practising a short, accurate and objective way of re-writing the same text help the students improve their critical mental faculty and enhance their interest in reading. To get better at writing and text analysis, one must use proper techniques like comprehending and summary writing.