Project
EASE
Early
Access to Success in Education
A
Parent-Child Program
4.
A Time to Remember:
A
Narrative Retelling Unit
Background Information for Parents
One of the binding aspects of family life is the making of memories. Children store up those memories and use them to make sense of the world. One of the richest language opportunities for children is to recount prior experiences. When children have the opportunity to retell an event they have to think about the words that best tell their story.
How do narrative retellings help reading? When children are required to be the narrator, or storyteller, they are putting themselves in the place of an author. It is their job to explain to someone else, perhaps who wasn't there, what an event was like. When telling a story again the child has to construct from his or her memory the important events that happened. He or she has to tell them in a certain order and with a degree of detail so that the story can be communicated to the listener.
Having the center stage as a narrator allows a child an important opportunity to build language skills that will be used in reading. Once your child becomes a reader, he or she will act as the "audience" or listener for the stories. They will have to read the events of a story and will construct from the author's words their own understanding. If a child has had many opportunities to listen to and create stories, he or she will find that construction much easier.
How do I get my child to retell stories? For the most part, parents find a much greater problem in trying to get children to stop telling stories. Children are naturally enthusiastic storytellers. Parents can greatly encourage their children by having them retell an event to someone who was absent from the event. When a child has to put an event in past tense, resequence the steps, and come to a conclusion, it prepares them for other stories. If they can clearly describe what happened they are learning some very basic narrative skills. Parents can best encourage this behavior by letting the child do most of the telling.
What kinds of stories should I encourage? Special events that happen to a child, for instance: a birthday, a day when a brother or sister came home, the first day of school, a major accomplishment. Holidays are natural events to retell. All of these events have stored memories with rich feelings and emotions. They have a clear beginning, middle, and end. These events make wonderful stories.
How should I get my child to retell stories? One natural way is to listen as your child talks to you at the dinner table or at bedtime. The car is fast becoming the family conference center also. Sharing meals at a restaurant allows for face to face communication, but your child will soon begin to have new ways of telling stories - by writing them down.
Writing stories is an excellent way to build all the skills discussed above. Can a kindergarten child write before he or she can read? Yes. Children can tell a story through their art. When a child is drawing a story through illustration it is every bit a composition as telling it in words. Their art is selected to resequence events and communicate ideas to someone else. The rich language often comes when the artist explains the picture to someone else. Composing stories through art is a good way to build writing skills and enhance reading skills.
What if my child can't spell words correctly? If a child tells a story but doesn't know how to write the words, he or she is NORMAL! All children progress through very predictable stages of spelling as they are learning how to read and write. As they learn more about letters and sounds and they see words in print, they will use that information to construct the words they want to spell. When they make their best guess at words they are revealing a very special knowledge about written language. You can learn much about where your child is by looking at the ways they attempt to spell a word. If my child misspells a word, will that make my child a poor speller? Actually, the more freedom you give your child to figure out how to spell a word the better speller they will become. The more they have to think about which letters make certain sounds and in which order they have to appear in a word, the better speller they will be.
Parents meet with the Project EASE teacher who gives them background information on the role narrative retellings can play in developing oral and written language skills. Parents are given a spelling exercise to demonstrate the role that spelling by sound plays when there is not a stored orthographic representation of the word in memory. This spelling exercise gives parents a better perspective of the emerging print/sound system their child is developing.
Concepts Covered:
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Children, who take on the role of a narrator of a story, whether in oral or written format, assume a more formal language stance.
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Children who recall a past event learn how to recall major event, resequence significant actions, fill in critical details, and entertain the listener develop critical comprehension skills.
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Children who retell events through print foster their print and sound skills in addition to developing their language skills.
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Parents can learn about a child's developing print and sound system by observing the invented spelling used in the narrative retellings.
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Children use art as a form of composition in retellings which can serve as an important language planning function.
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Past experiences having stored emotions ( surprise, nervousness, etc.) make narrative retelling easier because those events are easier to recall and have a natural beginning, middle, and end.
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Imagined stories created by the narrator may be incomplete in form but will show further development over time.
Parents engage in one-on-one activities with their children which gives them a chance to observe their child's development in narrative retellings, invented spelling, creative dramatics, and story sequencing.
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Children act out the familiar stories, Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Bears by using story props and taking roles of different characters.
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Children design and write a card to a distant family member.
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Children resequence a story, add dialog, and create a book about making a snowman.
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Children retell significant milestones in their life by creating a timeline using art and print.
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Children create books around a single topic.
Children have a journal to complete at home which gives them opportunities to retell past events and write imagined stories. Children use both art and print to retell their stories.