3 Simple Summarizing Frames to Boost Comprehension

Hey, teacher friends! Welcome back to another episode of The Stellar Teacher Podcast. I’m your host, Sara Marye, and today we’re going to dive into one of the most important yet challenging comprehension skills we can teach our students—and that is summarizing.

Now, I’m sure you’ve seen both ends of the spectrum: where you ask your students to write a summary, and they just sit there staring at a blank piece of paper not knowing where to start, and then the other extreme—where students retell every single detail of the story. If you’ve seen either of those things in your classroom, your students are likely struggling with summarizing, and you are definitely not alone.

Summarizing is one of those higher-level skills that requires students to do a lot in order to be successful. They have to synthesize and prioritize information. They need to organize it, use their own words, and have a clear structure. So yes, summarizing can be challenging—but it’s also one of the most powerful things we can ask our students to do.

Research tells us (and I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast) that asking students to write a summary—even a short or informal one—can actually be more effective at boosting comprehension than asking comprehension questions. So we know writing summaries is important, and we want to help our students get better at it.

In this short and actionable episode, I’m going to share three super simple summarizing frames that you can teach your students this week. I’ll also share examples of what each one looks like. So let’s go ahead and jump right in.

Before we get into the specific frames, let’s just take a moment to reiterate why summarizing is important. Summarizing isn’t just about retelling or regurgitating the story. It requires students to identify the most important details and ideas in the text. They need to figure out how to leave out the extra, less important details. They have to synthesize the information in their own words. And if we ask them to write a summary, they also need to organize it and present it in complete, logical sentences that make sense.

When students can summarize, it shows they have a strong understanding of the text as a whole. And when that’s the case, they’re more likely to retain what they’ve read. Writing summaries also strengthens their written responses, improves their ability to participate in discussions, and, of course, gives a boost to their overall comprehension.

But for many students, being asked to write a summary can feel overwhelming. I remember when I taught fourth grade—summarizing was the skill my students dreaded the most. Whenever a summary question came up on a test, they would groan and say, “No, not this one!” It’s a lot to think about, and it can feel intimidating.

So if summarizing feels overwhelming to your students, we need to give them support. That’s where providing summarizing frames can really help.

Now, before I share the three frames, I want to clarify that the goal is not for students to master the frame. The goal isn’t for them to always rely on a specific format to summarize a text. These frames are simply a starting point—training wheels, in a way—to give students confidence and structure while they’re learning what belongs in a summary.

Eventually, we want students to be able to summarize independently, without relying on the frame. And when I say “frame,” I’m referring to a sentence structure, checklist, or outline—a tool that helps students organize their thinking and get started.

One of the easiest frames to use for fiction—and you’ve probably seen this before, but I have a few extra thoughts about it—is the “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then” framework, often abbreviated as SWBST. This is a classic summary frame for fiction.

It stands for:

Somebody — Who is the main character?

Wanted — What does the character want?

But — What is the problem or obstacle?

So — What did the character do to solve the problem?

Then — How did it end?

This frame is helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it helps students capture the entire plot in just a few lines, allowing them to cover the whole story concisely. Second, as students fill it out—especially if you provide a graphic organizer with the “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then” prompts—it gives them a clear structure to turn their ideas into complete sentences.

Here’s a simple example (it’s made up, but it illustrates the idea):

Somebody: Mia

Wanted: to win the school science fair

But: her volcano model exploded the night before

So: she had to rebuild it from scratch using materials at home

Then: she presented her new model and won second place

Students can easily turn those ideas into a summary:

“Mia wanted to win the school science fair, but her volcano model exploded the night before, so she had to rebuild it from scratch using materials at home. Then she presented her new model and won second place.”

This helps students not only identify the key elements to include in a summary but also gives them a ready-made sentence structure to organize their thoughts clearly.

However, one important thing to keep in mind is that while this is a great frame for summarizing, it doesn’t work for every fiction story—and that’s where teachers sometimes run into challenges. I remember when I first introduced this to my students (I think I was teaching second grade at the time), it was part of our curriculum, and I realized it didn’t fit the story we were reading because the main character didn’t actually want anything.

If we give students a frame that doesn’t fit the story, it can confuse them even more. So, this is a great tool when the story clearly includes a character goal, problem, and resolution—but if those elements aren’t present, don’t force the frame. Make sure your students understand that this is a helpful tool for many fiction stories, but not all of them.

Okay, now I have a good nonfiction option. So for nonfiction, you can use the acronym or the letters T, A, M, K, O. And this just sort of lists out things that we want students to pay attention to or to include in their summary.

So, T stands for text type — what type of text is this?

A stands for author and action — what is the author doing?

M stands for main topic — what is the central idea?

K stands for key details — what details support the main idea?

And then the O can sometimes be included or not, but it stands for organization.

It can be really helpful for students to think about how the information is structured. Whether or not they include that in their actual summary, oftentimes in upper elementary, the organization or text structure gives them a lot of information to help them summarize.

We want students to be thinking about this. This frame is a little more advanced and complex, but it helps students move beyond just facts and think critically about the text structure, the purpose, and what’s really happening in the text.

Here’s an example of what this could look like. Again, this is from a made-up nonfiction text:

T — It’s an informative article.

A — The author explains.

M — The main idea: how honeybees communicate.

K — They use dance movements, scents, and vibrations to share information.

That right there could be the summary itself.

O — The author organized the article by explaining each communication method in its own section. So we’d be looking at a description text structure.

Again, whether or not students include that piece, it’s helpful for them to think about how the author is presenting the information. If they know there’s a section on dance movements, one on scent, and one on vibrations, that helps them identify the key details they should include.

They can then take that information and turn it into a simple summary:

“This informational article explains how honeybees use movement, scent, and vibration to communicate.”

Simple yet powerful — and it gets to the main point.

This frame works with most informational texts, but similar to the “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then” frame, it’s important for students to realize that these strategies don’t necessarily work with every single text. The goal isn’t to master one specific strategy — the goal is to find a strategy that helps them clearly summarize the text.

Sometimes this one might work for a nonfiction text, and sometimes it won’t. Which is why I also like to teach students kind of a generic or universal frame.

A really easy way to help students if they’re struggling with either of the other summaries is to have them write a summary in 10 words or less.

The reason I like this prompt is because it’s super flexible and open-ended. It can work with any text. But when we put a cap on the number of words students can use, it really forces them to think carefully about what’s most important.

This can work with any type of text, but students are going to have to pause and really think. And when they write something, they have to go back and make sure that they only used 10 words.

And how many times do your students write something and never go back to double-check it? Well, if they’re limited by word count, they’ll check. So again, that constraint really forces students to think critically about what they’re writing.

And here’s the other thing — while this might sound simple, it can also help students who struggle to write. They might feel better knowing they only have to write 10 words. That’s just one sentence! But it’s actually really difficult to write a complete, clear sentence — maybe two — in 10 words or less.

So this can be a really good challenge for your more advanced students. Your average or lower-level students will likely write very simple sentences, but if you give your higher-level writers the same constraint and encourage them to be specific, you can get some really creative responses.

For example, this might be tough for a large text, but it works great at the end of each chapter or after a short paragraph. You can also use it for entire novels.

So if your students just read Charlotte’s Web and you asked them to summarize it in 10 words or less, you’d get some really interesting results.

Maybe a basic one like:
“Wilbur finds a friend. Charlotte saves him with her web.”
That’s a solid summary.

Or maybe something a little deeper like:
“A spider’s kindness turns an ordinary pig into something special.”

Or for students who understand how to use punctuation creatively:
“Spider writes words; pig’s life saved; friendship and loss follow.”

So the 10-words-or-less strategy, while it sounds simple, can actually be a really fun and challenging writing activity for your students.

Okay, so again, each of these frames gives students some structure to lean on. It gives them a starting point, which can reduce their cognitive load and help them feel like they have the ability to be successful with summaries.

But remember, the goal is not to master the frames. The goal is to find a frame that helps them write a summary — and eventually be able to do that on their own.

So if you have students who are struggling with summarizing, try teaching one of these summarizing frames this week. Just teach them one. Model it with a shared text, do a few examples together, and then let them try it on their own.

And if you are part of the Stellar Literacy Collective, we have resources that use all of these strategies. These strategies show up in our small group lessons, and of course, if you want a ready-to-go anchor chart for these frames, you can find both printable and digital versions of the SWBST and the TAMKO frames inside the membership.

As always, thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in, and of course, thank you so much for showing up for your students. They are so lucky to have you.

If this episode was helpful, send it to a teammate or share it on Instagram — we always love when teachers recommend our show to other teachers.

I hope you have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next Monday.