Adolescent literacy has, for many years, been a forgotten area as educators have focused their attention on early literacy, in particular, Grades K-3. However, in the last few years adolescent literacy has gained more attention as policy makers and educators realize that literacy is a critical issue even as students transition into the middle and high school settings.
Summarizing can be highly effective for helping students identify main ideas, generalize, remove redundancy, integrate ideas, and improve memory for what is read. It is especially worthwhile when used with other strategies such as generating questions and answering questions (NRP, 2000). Although sometimes considered similar to synthesizing, it is important to note that summarizing is more of a part of synthesizing. While creating a synthesis lends itself toward the achievement of creating a new perspective or thought out of what one is reading, summarizing provides more of an opportunity to understand and restate the text (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000).