Retelling

If you download the Five Finger Retelling, there is a book you can print to go along with it!

Retelling a story is something we have worked on all year long. I started using the five finger retelling strategy last year. I love it! All I have to do after a story is hold up my left hand and my students will list the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end of the story. This week, I have been explaining the difference between summarizing and retelling. The five finger retelling strategy is better used with summarizing but I have found that using this to get kindergarteners to retell has been great, especially for my boys that stare at me and say they don’t remember.

Today I read “Chicken Little” to my class and then I passed out one page of the five finger retelling book. As I handed it out, I told the student which part they were writing about. This is the first time that I have had my students retell by writing, so I was lenient on the explanations. I think they did a great job!

This student had the ending of “Chicken Little” and she wrote, “The wolf throwed the guys up”. In the “Chicken Little “book that we read, the wolf tricked them and they went into his mouth and he sneezed them out. 

This student said, “Second, Chicken Little ran into friends.”   

This student said, "Chicken Little got hit by an acorn."

To get to my teachers pay teachers account and download the free smartboard five finger retelling slide, click here.