- Define and explain Retelling Stories in your own words
- Use key terms such as character accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Retelling Stories: tell a story back in your own words, keeping the events in order.
Tell a story back in your own words, keeping the events in order.
Key ideas
Listening is a skill
Good listeners sit still, look at the storyteller and keep the story in their heads. You can show you are listening by joining in with repeated phrases, such as roaring along with the giant. Listening well is the first step to understanding stories.
Stories follow a pattern
Most stories introduce a character and a setting, then something goes wrong in the middle, and the ending sorts it out. Spotting this beginning-middle-end pattern helps you remember stories and tell your own.
Key term — character: A person, animal or creature in a story. You can describe how a character looks, feels and behaves.
Listen to this short story, then retell it in order. Story: A little duckling wandered away from the pond. It felt lost and lonely. A kind frog showed it the way home. The duckling's mother hugged it tight.
Name the beginning: the duckling wanders away from the pond. Name the middle: the duckling feels lost, then the kind frog helps. Name the ending: the duckling comes home and its mother hugs it. Tell it back using the words first, then and finally.
Answer: First the duckling wandered away from the pond. Then it felt lost and lonely until a kind frog showed it the way home. Finally its mother hugged it tight.
- Telling events out of order Use the words first, then and finally to keep the beginning, middle and end in the right order.
- Forgetting to name the characters Say who the story is about at the start, for example: This story is about a little duckling.
Practice
First.
At the pond.
The duckling wanders away and feels lost and lonely.
The duckling wanders off, the frog helps, mother hugs the duckling.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "character"?
How does the ending make the duckling feel?
Who is the main character in The Lost Duckling?
- Retelling Stories: tell a story back in your own words, keeping the events in order.
- Listening is a skill: Good listeners sit still, look at the storyteller and keep the story in their heads.
- setting: Where and when a story happens.
- Watch out for: telling events out of order