Do you have students who finish reading a story and cannot retell any details about what happened? These students obviously do not have a solid comprehension of the text if they’re unable to retell it. Teaching retelling is absolutely crucial. If students cannot retell a story, it’ll be impossible for them to comprehend the text at a higher level.
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Retelling is when you read or listen to a story and then tell it again in your own words. It’s like giving a summary, but you include all the important parts, like the characters, setting, and main events. Think of it like sharing a fun story with a friend—you’re making sure they get the main idea and the best details without reading or hearing the whole thing themselves.
These whole group activities will help you introduce and model the retelling reading strategy for students. These activities and tools can be used during interactive read-alouds and minilessons, you can provide scaffolded support for students with story retell.
A story retell rope is a ribbon with images to help students retell the story. The rope guides students as they retell: setting, characters, beginning, middle, and end. You can use this after a read-aloud or guided reading group. My friend Kelly (From Kindergarten with Love) has these images available for FREE to make your own retelling rope!
This game is a fun way to practice retelling a story. Students must work together to identify the story elements for a story that they’ve read. It is essentially the same concept as completing a story elements graphic organizer after reading, just in a game format! Find out how to play this Free Story Elements Game.
Reading small groups is the perfect opportunity to provide guided practice with reading comprehension strategies. By strategically selecting tools and activities you can scaffold their learning to help them find success with the skill.
Before having students completely retell a story on their own, you may want to scaffold their learning with pictures. Provide 3 pictures from the story and have them identify which happened in the beginning, middle, and end. Gradually add more pictures and focus on using the correct vocabulary when retelling (first, then, next, last).
Story Retell Dice Mats are a fun way to practice retelling in a small group. Students roll the dice and answer a question that corresponds to the number rolled. They can answer orally or in writing.
Another option is to use Retelling Dice that have questions written directly on the dice.
These are strategies for teaching retelling that have proven to be effective with students – especially reluctant readers. Introduce and practice the strategies together during small group instruction so that students will begin implementing them independently.
Before students can retell an entire story, they need to check for understanding as they’re reading. Students can use 3 different strategies at the end of each paragraph/page to see if they can retell what they just read.
Students can refer back to the sketches and notes they took while reading to retell the entire story. It is also beneficial to guide students to pick which of the 3 retelling strategies work best for them.
The Who/What retelling strategy is an easy place to begin. Rather than retelling an entire story, students can begin by answering: Who was it about? What happened? During small groups, you can practice having students identify Who and What on each page. This helps ensure that they are comprehending the story as they read.
The 5 Finger Retell is a popular visual to help primary students retell a story. Each finger represents a different part of the story: character, setting, problem, events, and ending.
Students can use this strategy to retell the story orally or in writing. It is helpful to keep this tool visible during minilessons and small group instruction to remind students of the story elements when retelling. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the free chart!
Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then is another popular framework to use for retelling. This can act as a scaffold to assist students retelling a story orally or in writing.
There are so many FUN ways for students to practice story retell during literacy centers. After they practice these activities collaboratively with a partner, they may also begin using them during independent reading as well.
After reading, students can choose emojis to help them retell the story. This can be done in any basic notes app on the device you use or students can copy & paste emojis from Emojipedia. Eventually, you may want to challenge students to only use a select number of emojis (5 or less) to force them to focus on the most important events. Have students orally retell the story using the emojis as a visual scaffold. It also helps to have students explain why they selected certain emojis to represent specific parts of the story. Using emojis to retell makes it engaging and is especially effective for reluctant readers! Kids are already familiar with emojis, so it is naturally motivating for them!
It’s no surprise that kids love legos, so why not use them in the classroom? Students can practice retelling by using building blocks to create the setting of a story or their favorite part. This visual can act as a tool to prompt their written retelling of the story. They can also use the lego characters to reenact and orally retell the story.
The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has tons of free literacy centers available to download. Their resources are organized in grade bands (K-1, 2-3, 4-5) and offer activities for all 5 components of literacy instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary).
Finger puppets are a fun way for early readers to retell a story. Students can use the puppets to act out the story. The puppets also act as a scaffold for kinesthetic learners. Students can also use this engaging tool while performing a Readers Theater script!
Story stones are small rocks with images painted on them. The images may represent various settings or popular characters. Etsy has thousands of story stones sets that are already created. You can also paint-your-own story stones based on what your students would use the most!
Students can draw 3 or more events from a story that was read aloud to the class on index cards. They can challenge a partner to put the events in the correct order. Students should practice orally retelling the story using sequencing words. Coding Tools can be a fun way to make this more engaging. Students can code tech tools like BeeBots or Ozobots to correctly retell the story.
Ultimately the goal of any reading comprehension strategy is for students to apply it during independent reading. So any of the activities and tools that were introduced during minilessons, small group, or centers can also be used during independent reading. By here are some other ways for students to independently practice story retell!
Students are guaranteed to enjoy retelling a story with the Chatterpix App by DuckDuckMoose. Students use the app to make any picture or drawing talk. They take a picture and draw a line over the mouth. They record the voiceover. Then add decorations to the image and watch it back. Such an engaging and fun way to retell a story!
You can easily make a retelling bracelet with a pipe cleaner and some beads. Decide how many elements you want students to retell. Then pick a color bead to represent each part. Put them on the pipe cleaner to turn it into a bracelet for students! Some ideas for beads: beginning, middle, end / first, then, next, last / setting, characters, problem, events, ending.
Students can keep a Reading Bookmark in their book boxes to remind them how to retell as they read independently.
Retelling Bookmark for Independent Reading" />
Retelling isn’t just for reading! It can be a valuable tool for reinforcing learning in math, science, and social studies too. Here are some creative ideas for incorporating retelling activities into other content areas.
As you can see, there are various strategies and tools for teaching retelling. In fact, it may be overwhelming to have so many options available. So how do you decide which ones to use? Begin by taking the individual learning styles of your students into consideration. Some students benefit from verbal retelling, while others perform better with visual supports. Identify which strategies will be the best fit for your students – or introduce multiple tools and allow students to decide for themselves. Be sure to Download the FREE Resources to get started!
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