Retelling and summarizing sometimes feel like the bane of my existence!! It can be so hard for students to add the right amount of details, and to know which details are important. I'm always looking for new and interesting ways for my students to retell stories they have read. I saw an idea on Pinterest one day where students walked a retell road drawn on a huge piece of butcher paper. I thought it was a neat idea for one or two kids in a large space, but for my class, it just didn't work so I modified it to work for us. I drew a curvy road on a piece of chart paper and wrote the title of our shared reading book at the top. As a "we do" the class retold the story as I drew picture clues along the road.

As we worked I talked about how giving a retell is like telling someone about a walk or hike you went on. You wouldn't tell about each and every little rock and piece of grass you saw, you would tell about the big important things. After that, several children took a turn using the chart to retell the story. The next day they used our chart to retell to a partner. It really helps my visual learners and my ELLs to have that visual reference to use as a tool in their retelling. I've never seen kids so eager to retell, and their retells were amazing! The next week they worked in pairs, a "you do together", to draw a retell road for our new shared reading book after we had read it a few times. The following week we follow the same process, but they do it on their own. After we've done this a few times the kids create their own retell roads for books they've read during guided reading or read to self. Even my very low kids are able to feel successful with this strategy which I love! It's also a great assessment tool because I can see what my low kiddos, NEPs (non English proficient), or kids who are nonverbal can do because they don't have to write or speak to show their thinking. When they're ready they use these as a planning tool for creating written summaries. They also make a great planner for writing personal narratives, or fiction stories!