Retelling a story is a skill pre-readers need to practice in order to gain experience with later reading comprehension. Children can listen to a story and recall the characters, what they characters say, and details about the plot.
When doing this activity with children, choose a book that you would consider good literature (good characters, plot, beginning, middle, end). After the book has been read to the children, show the book and tell them to think about what happened in the story, the people (characters), and places they saw in the story. Ask them to think about what each character said.
Give each child a piece of paper and ask them to draw something they remember from the story. Remind them that this should not be a picture of their cat or their friends, but only pictures of things from the book.
After each child has illustrated the story, have them retell the story in their own words, and write their dictation.
These story recall drawings are great for saving in children’s portfolios. You can also save all of them through the year and put them together into a book.
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It is fabulous idea. I am going to share with my kids. Thanks.
I will us this in my December plans. I love it. Creativity is so important.
You have some great ideas. It is so kind of you to share. I wish there were more time ing the day to do so many fun and educational things! Thanks!!
I was wondering if you do this with Pre-K classes and if you think it would be a good model lesson to do for a job interview?
Yes, I teach Pre-K. For an interview, I would probably choose something more hands-on, with no paper/pencil type work. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I would want to do very hands-on activities for a job interview. That’s just my thought.
I really enjoy your lessons, it really is helping me so much. Very interesting, I can’t wait to try them with my ocean themes .
I see you read The Paperboy and Lunch With Aunt Augusta for your story re-telling activity. Can you list some additional pre-K appropriate books/stories that work well with this?
I don’t really have a list. I choose different books every year. Any book with a good story structure will work great (problem, solution, characters, plot…) You could do Pete the Cat, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Splat the Cat, Three Billy Goats Gruff (any fairy tale).
I love your creativity. I teach preschool with weekly themes. For each theme I am always able to find activities. Great resources!
Hi Karen! I am absolutely in love with your website! You continue to push me to be the best teacher that I could be. I love how you incorporate your themes into your dramatic play center. This Month we did the “Holiday Store” that allows the children to take on roles, like cashier, customer, stocker, etc. They have been busy learning about responsibilities and role playing, counting and making change. We have also seen great improvements with taking turns as each one of them gets to decide early on what they will be responsible for.
Hi I am a Headstart teacher and I really enjoy looking at the activities that you share on your site but I haven’t tried any of them yet because this is the first I have visit ed your site but I am starting an ocean unit Monday so I will be using some of the activities for this unit. You have some very good and interesting ideas on teaching preschool children and I really thank you for the help.
Your examples…are they only part of what they told you or that was all that was expected? Do you consider that enough to be able to say that student is able to retell a story? I always go back and forth as to how much of a story they should be able to retell to say they are “proficient” at it. Thanks!
Love your site!
I take many things into consideration if it’s going on a progress report. Of course, I use more than one story retelling page like this. I look at quality over quantity. Did they mention a character by name or just say “he” or “she”? Did they tell something a character said? Did they give detail about the story, and how many details? I also look at the drawing. If a child draws a few of the characters in the story, or if they draw the setting, or something that happened.
In the Lunch with Aunt Augusta picture above, that child not only drew each of the 3 lemurs that were main characters of the story, but also identified each lemur with the color ribbon they wore around their neck in the book (red, blue, yellow).
I also count when they retell a story using a flannel board, or if they pick up a book and “pretend-read” by looking at the pictures.
Thanks so much for your response! I appreciate your feedback!