The ability of the fifth graders to form summaries

Today, learning to learn is one of the key abilities/competencies in life. It is very important that students can learn by themselves. One of the basic strategies of processed subject matter is writing a summary of a text. By writing good summaries, individuals can improve their learning abilities and their academic success. In the research, we wished to ascertain whether the students of the 5th grade can form a summary of the text by themselves. Therefore, we performed qualitative and quantitative research. The students wrote a summary of a passage from the textbook for Science and Technology (the 5th grade). Then, we analyzed these summaries according to certain standards. The students, their teachers, and also the other teachers of the 5th grade also filled in the survey questionnaire because we were interested in how the students learn to form a summary and what causes them problems in the process, at which subjects in addition to Slovenian language, they write summaries, and whether they also write a summary of a part of the learning material for various subjects. The analysis of the summaries of the students shows that almost half of the students of the 5th grade can form a written summary of the text from the learning material. The weaknesses of their summaries are the following. They do not include all the accurate essential information from the original text in the summary. They add new information, false information, and their own experiences in the summary. Sentences in summaries are often not consistent internally (they are not connected with each other). Grammatical rules also cause them problems. Most of the teachers believe that the students have problems with determining the essence. A bit fewer teachers responded that forming (appropriate) sentences cause problems for the students. Teachers also stated that the students have problems with dividing texts into paragraphs. The students discuss and write summaries within the Slovenian language, but also within the Social Sciences, Science and Technology, and Home Economics. Approximately a third of students say that they have to write a summary of a chapter in a textbook during school lessons. More than half of the students say that they do this only rarely. Approximately 15% of students say, however, that they never have to do it. 75% of the teachers answered the question, whether the students have to write a summary of a chapter in a textbook occasionally, affirmatively. Most of the students say that learning to form a summary within the lessons of Slovenian language in the 5th grade took place so that the teacher first explained what the summary is, what the procedure of writing of the summary is, and what the summary includes. Then, they wrote a summary of a text together or took a look at an example of a text and its summary