Retelling a Fiction Story

How do you teach retelling a story to older students that struggle with it? Scaffolding, scaffolding, scaffolding!

The first step is to place sticky notes into the book. One at the beginning, middle and end of the story. This way, the students don't need to worry about what part is the beginning, middle or end of the story.   

The teacher starts by modeling to the students how to write a 1 or 2 sentence summary of the parts of the story (we've previously practiced the Who and What Happened strategy so we use that).  ​

We then gradually release it back to the students to write the parts on their own. We love to use Anita Archer's I Do (teacher), We Do (the group together), You Do (student) strategy. Each group is different for releasing the strategy back to them. Some get it right away, and others need more teaching or group modeling. Gage your students for when they are ready to work on the strategy by themselves. 

At first we place the sticky notes onto a graphic organizer. Eventually, over time, we flag the parts to the story and they only write onto the graphic organizer. After being successful with the graphic organizer they are usually great with verbal retells of the beginning, middle, and end of the story. 

We've tried skipping parts or moving faster, but our students really need all of these steps. Students not in interventions or struggling to retell may be able to move a little faster or skip some parts!

To use the BME strategy in your class all you need is sticky notes! We use these great graphic organizers. If you are interested in them for your students to organize their thoughts they can be found at our Teachers Pay Teachers story by clicking on the pictures or this link!