Summarising Skills for 11+ Comprehension

What Is Summarising and Why Does It Matter?

Summarising is the ability to identify the most important information in a text and express it concisely in your own words. It is a skill that 11+ examiners test directly through questions such as "Summarise the main events in this passage" or "In your own words, explain what happens in paragraphs 3-5."

Beyond its role in comprehension papers, summarising is one of the most transferable skills your child can develop. It requires careful reading, the ability to distinguish essential information from secondary detail, and the discipline to express ideas briefly and clearly. These same skills underpin strong essay writing, effective note-taking, and clear communication in every subject.

Many children find summarising surprisingly difficult. They either include too much detail (essentially retelling the entire passage) or miss crucial information by focusing on the wrong elements. The techniques in this guide will help your child strike the right balance.

Key Points vs Supporting Details

The foundation of good summarising is the ability to separate key points from supporting details. A key point is essential information without which the reader would not understand the passage. A supporting detail adds colour, explanation, or evidence but could be removed without losing the core meaning.

Here is a practical example:

"In 1666, a devastating fire swept through London, destroying over 13,000 houses and 87 churches, including the old St Paul's Cathedral. The fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane in the early hours of Sunday 2nd September. Fanned by strong easterly winds, it burned for four days. Despite the enormous destruction, remarkably few people are believed to have died — perhaps as few as six."

Key points: A great fire struck London in 1666, it destroyed thousands of buildings over four days, and very few people died.

Supporting details: The specific number of houses and churches, the name of the street where it started, the day of the week, the direction of the wind.

To practise this distinction, try the headline test: if your child had to write a newspaper headline for the passage, what would it say? That headline captures the key points. Everything else is supporting detail.

The 5 Ws Approach

The 5 Ws — Who, What, Where, When, and Why — provide a simple framework for identifying the essential information in any passage. When your child reads a text and needs to summarise it, they should ask:

• Who is involved? (the main characters or people)
• What happens? (the main events or ideas)
• Where does it take place? (the setting, if relevant)
• When does it happen? (the time period or sequence)
• Why does it happen? (the cause or motivation)

Not every question will be relevant to every passage. A description of a place might not have a "who" or a "why." A passage about a character's emotions might not have a "where." The 5 Ws are a checklist, not a rigid template — use the questions that fit.

Once your child has answered the relevant questions, they can combine the answers into a concise summary. For the Great Fire passage above:

"In 1666, a great fire destroyed much of London over four days, devastating thousands of buildings. Despite the scale of destruction, remarkably few people lost their lives."

This summary captures the essential information in just two sentences.

Practice With a Sample Passage

Read the following passage and try to write a summary of no more than three sentences:

"Mary Anning was born in 1799 in the coastal town of Lyme Regis, Dorset. As a child, she collected fossils from the cliffs near her home and sold them to tourists to help support her family. In 1811, when she was just twelve years old, Mary and her brother Joseph discovered the skeleton of an ichthyosaur — a marine reptile that had lived millions of years before. Over the following decades, Mary made many more extraordinary discoveries, including a nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton in 1823. Despite her remarkable contributions to the understanding of prehistoric life, Mary received little recognition during her lifetime because she was a woman from a poor background."

Model Summary

"Mary Anning, born in 1799, discovered important fossils along the Dorset coast from a young age, beginning with an ichthyosaur skeleton at the age of twelve. She made numerous significant contributions to our understanding of prehistoric life. However, she received little recognition in her lifetime due to her gender and social class."

What Makes This Summary Effective

• It includes the key points: who Mary was, what she discovered, and why it matters
• It omits supporting details such as her brother's name and the specific dates of later discoveries
• It is written in the student's own words rather than copied from the passage
• It is concise — three sentences covering the essential information

How Summarising Helps Creative Writing

Summarising may seem like a purely analytical skill, but it directly improves creative writing in several ways:

• Conciseness — children who practise summarising learn to express ideas in fewer words. This makes their creative writing tighter and more impactful, avoiding the waffling that examiners penalise.
• Focus — summarising trains children to identify what matters most. In creative writing, this translates to better plotting: knowing which scenes to develop and which to skip over.
• Vocabulary precision — finding the right word to replace a longer phrase is a core summarising skill. This same precision improves creative word choice.

The ability to say more with less is the mark of a skilled writer. Summarising is how children learn to do exactly that.

Word Limit Strategies

Some 11+ comprehension questions set a strict word limit for summary answers — for example, "Summarise the main events in no more than 40 words." Here are strategies for working within word limits:

• Write freely first, then cut — write your summary without counting words, then go back and remove anything that is not essential. It is easier to cut than to expand.
• Eliminate redundancy — phrases like "I think that" or "in my opinion" waste words. Get straight to the point.
• Combine ideas — instead of two sentences, see if you can merge the information into one. For example, "She was born in Lyme Regis. She collected fossils" becomes "Born in Lyme Regis, she collected fossils from the nearby cliffs."
• Use precise vocabulary — one well-chosen word can replace an entire phrase. "She was very sad about what happened" becomes "She was devastated."
• Count your words — this sounds obvious, but under exam pressure children often misjudge. Practise counting quickly and accurately at home.