Story Retell

Posted on by : Kasey Wade Tags:

“And then, um….and then….he took that thing out and put it here when I said don’t”. Sound familiar? Kiddos can find retelling events or stories challenging, but ever wonder why? Well I think it is time we talked about how to help your little one retell a story and the tools you can use to make this process smoother!  

 

There are many reasons why kiddos stories are hard to follow for their listeners, sometimes it’s the repetition of the same phrase over and over again. Sometimes it’s the key details they are leaving out such as “who” they are talking about, “what” they are talking about, or “where” it happened. We wanted to provide you with a quick and easy tool that outlines all of the necessary parts of a story.  

Here are the main sections! 

  1. Character – who is in the story.  
  2. Setting – where did it happen and when did it happen 
  3. Kickoff – what big thing happened that started the story 
  4. Emotion/Feeling – how did the character/person feel 
  5. Plan – what did the character plan to do 
  6. What happened then – how did the plan go 
  7. Conclusion – how did the story wrap up/end 

 

Let’s look at a well known example from the beloved Three Little Pigs story.  

  • Character/Who – Pigs and Wolf 
  • Setting – At the pigs houses 
  • Kickoff – The Wolf came to eat the pigs 
  • Emotion/Feeling – That made the pigs feel scared 
  • Plan – They planned to build a house to keep the wolf out 
  • What Happened then – One pig built a house out of stick, one pig built a house out of straw, and one built a house out of bricks 
  • Conclusion – The wolf blew down the two weaker houses but he couldn’t blow down the one out of bricks and the pigs were safe! 

Make sense? You can even begin to practice including these different parts of a story into a book that you have read together in order to help your child see all of the pieces and put them together with pictures to help! We have also included a visual that might help your child remember all the different pieces of a story! Give it a try and tell us how it went!  

-Kasey-