About this activity
Ten prompts that walk a student through a wordless picture book and then hand it over: page one, who is here and where are they; page three, something changes, what is the problem; page four, what does the character decide to do; page six, how does the character feel and how can you tell; then tell the whole story start to finish without stopping, retell it with first, then, next and finally, and tell it again adding what the characters are thinking.
How to use it in a session
Use the page prompts once and then stop using them. Their job is to establish what a complete narrative includes; the three whole-story cards at the end are the target, and a student who is prompted page by page every session never produces a narrative of their own. The final card — adding what characters are thinking — is the most advanced and is where mental state language appears.
What to listen for
This is a language sample as much as an activity. Count utterances, clauses per utterance and story grammar elements on the unprompted retell, since that is a clean spontaneous sample. Watch for the internal response, which the page prompts supply and which usually disappears when they are withdrawn.
Carrying it home
Any picture book works, and a wordless one works best. Asking a child to tell the story rather than reading it to them takes the same time and does considerably more.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Third through seventh, for narrative production and language sampling.
- Do I need an account?
- No, all ten prompts play free.
- Why a wordless book?
- Because it removes the text. There is nothing to recall or decode, so every word the student produces is their own — which is exactly what a language sample needs.