Have you ever retold a story to someone? It almost always has a beginning, middle and end. It’s not a good story if any one aspect is left out right?! Teaching your students how to retell a story helps ensure that they are comprehending the story in its entirety. This is a learned skill just like any other. A lot of beginning readers will start their stories at the end and work backward. And while we can all appreciate our kids getting to the point as quickly as possible, it’s not a good strategy when it comes to ensuring reading comprehension. Today we are going to focus on How to Teach Story Sequencing using one of my favorite books: Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.
Why is Teaching Story Sequencing Important?
We all have a tendency to retell a story based on the parts that are most important to us. When we teach students how to retell a story based on the facts of the story, instead of their biased relevance, we are helping them keep to the author’s purpose and focus on the story as a whole. Teaching young readers how to properly order the events in a story helps them understand how the story is organized and the importance that the order has on it.
Practicing and becoming good at story sequencing can also help students in other subjects such as history, with timelines and science with experiments.
Dragons Love Tacos Story Retelling
- Begin by reading the story. As you are reading the book discuss what is happening at the beginning, middle and end.
- Once you get to the end of the story. Have your student retell the story to you by asking them to explain what happened in each part of the story.
- Depending on the age of your student, use the Dragons love Tacos story sequencing sheet and have them either write or draw the story keeping in mind the beginning, middle and end.
Don’t have the book? No problem, catch the storytelling of it on YouTube.
Do you love the book as much as I do? Grab the whole Dragon’s love Tacos Mini Lesson here for free!
Other ideas for Teaching Story Sequencing
There are so many fun ways you can practice Story Sequencing with your students. Try some of these fun ideas to keep the learning fun.
- Photocopy the pages of a short storybook. Mix up the pages (hiding any page numbers) and have your student put them in order.
- Have students retell a story by only drawing pictures of different parts of it. See if you can figure out what was happening.
- Take a well-known story like a fairy tale or nursery rhyme and have one student retell the story changing just one aspect of it. See if another student (or you!) can figure out what part is wrong.
- Make a story quilt with paper or fabric. Students can draw or write the events of the story on each square and they pieces can be pieced together to form a kind of quilt.
- Practice sequencing using First, Second, Next, Finally and have students write about how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I have created 12 weeks of lessons with popular children’s books. Each lesson includes a story sequence printable. Get all the details by clicking on the Lemonade and Tales image below.
Do you love the idea of Creating a whole theme around this Fantastic book? Have a Taco Party!
