Retelling: One of Many Comprehension Strategies
STRATEGY CORNER
Iowa Reading Association Newsletter, November 1999
Lucy Foster, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, Keystone AEA, Eastern Iowa Reading
Council
There are a number of instructional strategies that students can use to help them to
comprehend what they have read. In fact, there are so many that a listing of them would
fill several pages. Yet, the use of even one strategy has shown to improve students’
comprehension. A key to how well the student uses the strategy is in how the teacher
presents it.
In a paper published by CIERA, Nell K. Duke and P. David Pearson suggest an instructional
model, which includes five components:
1. An explicit description of the strategy and when it should be used.
2. Teacher modeling of the strategy.
3. Teacher-student collaborative use of the strategy.
4. Guided practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility.
5. Students’ independent use of the strategy.
Retelling is a strategy that can be used in grades K-12, because what is required of the
student can be quite simple or quite detailed. The following six types of retelling could be
used:
1. Oral-Oral: Students listen and retell orally.
2. Oral-Drawing: Students listen and retell by drawing.
3. Oral-Writing: Students listen and retell in writing.
4. Written-Oral: Students read and retell orally.
5. Written-Drawing: Students read and retell by drawing.
6. Written-Written: Students read and retell in writing.
Before students actually under take any of the above ways of retelling, they need to know
what is expected of them. Do they know what story elements are included in retelling? Do
they know that they need the following explicit information (these could vary):
 Characters
 Setting
 Initiating event
 Problem
 Solution
How is the teacher going to help the student remember the story
elements that are included in retelling? There is an old saying that a
picture is worth a thousand words. In retelling, organizers of various
kinds can be used. In kindergarten, pictorial representations might be
used as the teacher models the strategy, and in other grades graphic
organizers could be used. An interesting model that could be shared
would be a hand with the sentence, “Somebody somewhere wanted a
problem to be solved.”
No matter what comprehension strategy students use, teachers need to model and
explicitly teach it so students will know how to use it.