About this activity
Ten familiar tales to retell with the full structure — who, where, problem, plan, action, ending: The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Gingerbread Man, The Ugly Duckling, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Little Red Hen. The plot is already known, so the retell is about structure rather than memory.
How to use it in a session
Name the six elements before the retell and count them afterwards. A number gives the student something concrete to aim at, and it makes the missing element visible without a judgement attached. Start with the tale the student knows best. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is the hardest here, because its problem is a consequence of the character's own repeated action rather than an external event.
What to listen for
Listen for the plan, which is the element most often missing. In The Three Little Pigs the plan is building a house of a particular material, and a retell that lists three houses without the reasoning has the actions and not the intent. Watch whether the student includes the ending as a resolution rather than simply stopping.
Carrying it home
Fairy tales are known by everyone in the house, which makes retelling them a shared activity rather than a task. Asking for one at bedtime, with a count of the elements, takes three minutes.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten through third grade, for narrative retelling.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all ten prompts play with no account.
- Why use stories the student already knows?
- Because it separates memory from structure. A retell of a new story tests both; a retell of a familiar one shows you exactly what the student's narrative structure looks like.