Free narrative and story retell activities for speech therapy
33 free activities · no sign-up
Narrative boards practice telling a story with its parts in place: characters, setting, a problem, attempts to solve it, and an ending. Students retell familiar tales and short stories, narrate picture sequences, map story grammar, and tell personal narratives about things that happened to them.
For older students the same skills carry into expository text: describing, comparing and contrasting, explaining a problem and its solution. Recording a retell at the start of a unit and again at the end gives you a progress measure that families and teachers can follow.
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All 33 activities
PreK–2
- AAC Story TellingUse AAC to retell a simple story sequence.
- Cause-Effect Story ElaborationExpand narratives by adding cause-effect relationships between events.
- Character Description PracticeDescribe story character attributes: physical, personality, and motivations.
- Dialogue InterpretationInterpret and produce character dialogue reflecting motivation and emotion.
- Inference Making from StoriesMake logical inferences about story events, character feelings, and unstated information.
- Narrative Elaboration with AdjectivesEnrich narrative language by adding descriptive adjectives to a simple story.
- Narrative Macrostructure: Build the Whole StoryGeneration prompts that each require a complete story grammar including a character, a setting, a problem, attempts and a resolution, rather than a…
- Narrative Retell — Short StoryRetell a short story using picture sequence cards.
- Personal Narrative GenerationTell a personal story about a real event using complete story structure.
- Personal Narrative: Tell Me What HappenedPersonal-event prompts for eliciting a connected speech sample the student owns, each one specific enough that a one-line answer does not satisfy it.
- Picture Sequence NarrationArrange picture sequences and narrate using temporal language: first, next, then.
- Problem-Solution NarrativeGenerate a narrative organized around a clear problem and resolution.
- Put It in Order: Planting a SeedFive steps for planting a seed, dealt out of order for the student to put in sequence and retell.
- Retell and Draw: First, Next, LastNarrative retell scaffolded by drawing. Each mini-story is read aloud, then drawn in order and retold.
- Six-Frame Stories: Narrate the SequenceEach card is a six-event sequence to be narrated as a connected story rather than read back as a list, so temporal and causal connectives are…
- Story Grammar ElementsIdentify character, setting, problem, and solution.
- Story Grammar MappingIdentify and label story grammar elements using a visual map scaffold.
- Story Prediction PracticePredict what will happen next in a narrative based on story grammar and context.
- Story Retell: Tell It Back in OrderRetell tasks for a story the student has just heard, each card constraining the retell differently so the same story yields several distinct samples.
- Story Retelling — Familiar TaleRetell a familiar fairy tale using all 7 story grammar elements.
- Story Sequencing — 4 StepsPut 4 story pictures in the correct order.
- Story Sequencing — 6 StepsPut 6 story pictures in the correct order.
- Story SummarizationSummarize a story in 2-3 sentences capturing the main idea and resolution.
Grades 3–5
- Draw Then Tell: Personal NarrativeDraw a real event, then tell it as a complete narrative with orientation, complication and resolution.
- Episodic Structure ScaffoldingScaffold production of complete 7-element episodes with fading visual support.
- Expository Text Compare-ContrastProduce expository text comparing two concepts using a Venn diagram scaffold.
- Expository Text DescriptiveProduce a descriptive expository passage with topic sentence and supporting details.
- Expository Text Problem-SolutionProduce a problem-solution paragraph using cohesive text structure.
- Main Idea and Details ExtractionIdentify the main idea and two supporting details from an expository passage.
- Perspective-Taking NarrativeRetell a story from a different character's point of view.
- Story Generation from PromptCreate a complete original story from a single picture or title prompt.
- Story Grammar Map: Character, Setting, Problem, SolutionBuild a narrative macrostructure visually, then retell from the map with no written script.
- Wordless Book NarrationGenerate a spontaneous narrative from a wordless picture book for language sampling.
Questions
- What is story grammar?
- Story grammar is the set of parts most stories share: setting, characters, an initiating event, the character’s feelings and plan, attempts, a consequence and an ending. Mapping a story onto those parts gives the student a frame to retell with.
- Retell or personal narrative: which should I target?
- Both matter. A retell shows whether a student can organize a story they heard; a personal narrative shows whether they can organize their own experience, which is what conversation asks of them. Many students do better on one than the other.
- How do I make a retell easier?
- Let the student look at the pictures, give them a story map with an icon for each part, or offer the first few words of each part as a starter. Fade the support as the retell gets fuller, and log the support level with each trial.
Keep the data from every board
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal. Assign any board as home practice through the parent portal.
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