Summarize Text

Summarizing is the restating of the main ideas of the text in as few words as possible. Some students could understand the content if it was presented in simpler vocabulary.  Other students need less to read in order to complete the assignments in the same amount of time as their peers.  Summarizing the text is a way to help both types of students complete the same grade level assignments as their classmates

The links below take you to free sites where you can paste an article, text or essay into the box to get a summary.  You can also summarize PDF documents or online articles and webpages by uploading a file or pasting a URL.  The sites below all offer different options in terms of selecting word, sentence or document length as well as text difficulty.

http://tools4noobs.com/summarize

http://textcompactor.com

http://smmry.com

http://freesummarizer.com

Wikipedia also has a summarize type option.  It has a language option called Simple English.  This language option changes the reading level of some Wikipedia articles.  Compare these two versions on Molecules:
English
Simple English

Matter is a Google Extension that summarizes text. 
Matter highlights the important text in a passage.  It allows you to read the important parts of an article without removing or changing any of the actual text within the article.

Summarizing text can benefit our students in so many ways.  Please explore the options I have provided for you and see which one(s) are best for you and your students. Consider teaching your students to do the summarizing for themselves, as a way to become more independent in their learning.