Recommended Reading Skills Focus Plan
November Focus: Retelling
Grade 1
Refer to LFS Curriculum Map: Gr. 1, Comprehension (Shared Reading)-Concept: Retelling;
Comprehension (Guided Reading)-Concept: Strategies and Critical Reading
Standards: 1.1.3, PA Standards for 1st Grade (Proof Edition) pages 49
Retelling: a child’s attempt to communicate his/her construction of meaning; the meaning that a child
constructs or creates depends on what the child brings to the text.
Viewing Retelling as a Developmental Process
Pretelling- the prerequisite to retelling
 Teach children to think in a sequential manner
o Pretelling involves thinking backward in order to recall the events in a routine and then
thinking forward in order to put events of a routine in sequential order
o Pretelling to, with, and by Children
 Identify tasks that would be appropriate for a pretelling
 Tasks should be simple enough to contain only three to four steps initially
and then increase in complexity as appropriate. (See Attached from the
Power of Retelling.)
 Identify the steps involved in an activity as they participate in the activity
 Recall the steps immediately afterward
Guided Retelling
 Immerse children in a read aloud daily to develop story structure; emphasis on the awareness of
literary elements
 Develop student knowledge about how text works, or text knowledge
o To help children develop a sense of story, immerse them in stories that lend themselves to
a discussion of literary elements. Research confirms that as children hear stories read
orally, they learn about story structures, book language, and the vocabulary of stories
o Mini-lessons take place after the read-aloud to model and demonstrate some aspect of the
text. Research suggests an immersion period of approximately several weeks for each
literary focus. This is the length of time needed for children to move beyond identifying
story elements to internalizing them and applying them to their own reading.
 Participate in language development activities through story language lists (See attached from The
Power of Retelling.)
o Identify concepts that the children need to know in order to understand the book
o Identify lists that can be generated
o Elaborate the lists to create meaningful language structures; add adjectives, verbs, adverbs,
and prepositions
 Modeled Retelling (retelling to children)-the highest level of support for retelling. The teacher
uses a chosen strategy to walk through the entire process of retelling while
modeling/demonstrating each step aloud.
 Retelling with Illustrations is the most concrete, supported level of developmental retelling as
story illustrations are used as a beginning instructional strategy for helping a student walk
through a story while retelling
10/31/08
Lower Dauphin School District
Recommended Reading Skills Focus Plan
November Focus: Retelling
Grade 1


Shared Retelling (retelling with children)-the teacher takes the lead but still shares the
responsibility of the retelling with the children by encouraging their participation as they feel
ready.
Mediated Retelling (retelling with children)-the teacher becomes the mediator between students
and the text by providing assistance when needed in order to ensure a successful retelling.
Prompts about Setting
 When and where does the story take place?
 How did the author develop the setting?
 What clues in the story helped you know about setting?
 How did the setting affect the story?
 How might the story have been changed if the setting had been different?
Prompts about Plot
 What happened at the beginning of the story?
 What was the problem or goal in the story?
 What did the characters do to try and solve the problem?
 How did the character(s) resolve the problem?
Prompts about Character
 What do you know about the character(s) from the story?
 What did their actions tell you about them?
 How do the characters change in the story?
 How did the personality of the character(S) affect the plot?
Graphic Organizers (attached)
References: The Power of Retelling, Vicki Benson and Carrice Cummins, 2000
10/31/08
Lower Dauphin School District