Notemaking and summarising information involves identifying key ideas and prioritising information.
Cover and Draw
Ask learners to read only as much as their hand covers and then stop.
Then give 30 seconds to draw a symbol or association of the key idea using a pencil only. Make sure that they don’t worry too much about the drawing and reinforce the idea that it is just to help them jog their memories later.
After the 30 seconds learners should put their pencils down, turn to their partner, show their sketch and talk through their understanding.
This is great value for both partners involved as they both unpack the information. The clock watcher has short bursts to consider the information in between explanations while the reader is absorbing.
Trivial Pursuits
If knowledge is going to be shared and transferred into another context or format then it has to be unpacked. One way to do this collaboratively is to provide a variety of texts.
Explain that you are going to ask each group to teach the class about the text they have been given. Ask them to make notes individually then ask each learner to share the information with a partner – it’s always interesting to see the priority given to different points.
Give the learners time to talk in the whole group about the information they have. It is a good idea to use prompt cards as the skills develop. A great approach to these is to get the learners to make their own in a separate lesson and these can be displayed in class.
E.g.
What’s it all about? Is that what you think?
Prove it!
Give me ten words that describe the text

Is the author biased? Who has the power? Who is the text for?
How does the text change the way you think or feel?
Using the distilled information from the group work the pupils can then design a quiz to develop the understanding of the class. Encourage them to think about a range of questions
.
Sell it to me!
Ask the learners to take the notes they have made and summarise them into a slogan.
Discuss with the whole the use of slogans to summarise what a company is all about.
This is also great way of developing both slogans or headlines for a newspaper article.
Same sounds stick
Asking the pupils to sort their learning into an alliterative phrase for sharing helps reinforce learning for both the individual and the whole class. e.g.
Card carrying creates crime or Deaf dog discovered!

Template
Early notes can sometimes require focused questions. With learners who find taking notes challenging, giving them a template to use in their mixed ability group is sometimes all they need to understand what is being asked of them.
What is the general topic?
What is the main problem?
What conclusion is reached?
Is it true, fiction or is it hard to tell?
Can you give the text a new title?
Mind Mapping
Mind maps are a graphical method of taking notes. This can be a useful if you are a visual learner – many children who use mind maps then use different colours to organise their notes. A mind map usually starts in the middle of a page with a central theme or title.
Trash and Treasure
This method is an active way to take notes and works well in classroom situations. In groups of around four or five, read a text on A3 paper and decide which parts are treasure (the important bits) and which bits are trash (are not really needed.) Once the groups have decided they take the text and cut out the trash and put it in one pile and keep the treasure. The Highland Literacy Project have a similar method using highlighters which can be found on their website.
Key Words
Learners work individually to read a text and identify 30 words that they believe might be important.
In groups of three, they discuss their choice of words and reduce the lists to a shared consensus of 15 key words. They then write a summary of the text using the 15 chosen key words.
The teacher can run through a checklist of the key points, and each group can tick off if they have covered each point.
Expert Jigsaw
Divide learners into groups of 5 or 6 then divide the learning into 5 or 6 sections. Assign each learner in the group a section making sure they only have access to their own section. Then create expert groups

where each child in the class who has been reading about the Blitz can discuss their findings and condense their learning into short notes.
Bring the learners back to their Jigsaw groups and they can then feedback what they have learned. This way a whole section of learning can be covered with each learner feeling like an expert in a certain area.
Jigsaw Book
Jigsaw books are quite tricky to make so here is a set of instructions from Linda Hoyt. It can used for learners to make an information booklet using the notes they have taken and encourages them to transfer the knowledge they have gained.