Timeline It: Sequencing a News Story
Order events from an informational text, separate stated from inferred, and defend the choices out loud.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Insist on the marking of where the article begins. News writing almost always starts in the middle or at the outcome and then backfills, and a student who assumes chronological order will build a wrong timeline from a correctly-read article. The two-perspectives card is the hardest and the most valuable, since it separates the sequence of events from the account of them. Twenty minutes covers one article with two or three tasks.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentPresent the item and wait 5 seconds of quiet before helping.Log as correct
- Question promptAsk a story-grammar question: who, where, what was the problem, what happened next?Log as cued
- Two choicesOffer two possible next parts of the story and let the student pick and say it.Log as cued
- ModelTell that part yourself; the student tells it back in their own words.Log as cued
Adjust it
Use fewer parts, and keep a first-next-last visual on the table.
Ask for the retell without the pictures, with a feeling or a reason added to each part.
Matching IEP goal
Given a picture or story prompt, Student will put events in order and retell them using first, next, then and last in 4 of 5 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than one question prompt.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Eight tasks that turn a news article into a timeline: read a short news article and draw a timeline of what happened, in order; mark where the article starts — does it begin at the beginning, or in the middle; draw what must have happened before the first event and label what you had to infer; draw two timelines of the same events, one from each side's point of view. Informational text rarely runs in chronological order, and noticing that is the skill.
What to listen for
Watch what gets inferred. The card asking what must have happened before the article's first event is the one that exposes whether a student can distinguish stated from implied — and both are needed to build a timeline. Notice whether the three-most-important-moments card produces a justification or a shrug; the reasoning is the point rather than the choice.
Carrying it home
Any news story works. Asking where the story actually starts, against where the article starts, is a thirty-second question that changes how a student reads news for good.
What's in this activity
- Read a short news article, then draw a timeline of what happened, in order.
- Mark where the article STARTS on your timeline. Does it begin at the beginning, or in the middle?
- Draw what must have happened before the article's first event. What did you have to infer?
- Draw only the three most important moments. Justify each choice out loud.
- Draw two timelines of the same events, one from each side's point of view.
- Draw what you predict happens next, and label the evidence you based it on.
- Draw a timeline of your own week, then summarize it in three sentences.
- Draw the timeline of a real school process -- a project deadline or registration -- and mark every deadline.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Eighth through twelfth, using real informational text.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all eight tasks are free to use here.
- Why timelines rather than summaries?
- Because a timeline exposes ordering. A summary can be written from a misread sequence and still sound plausible; a timeline makes the order explicit and therefore checkable.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.