Read & Retell Workstation

In this workstation, books are sorted out into leveled baskets. These baskets are in a different part of the room than my "library," as to not get those books mixed up with these. These books are only used for this Read and Retell Workstation. 

Directions for this workstation are visibly posted for students:
Directions for Read and Retell Workstation

Students are to read the book at their level or one level below, to ensure comprehension.
Then students are to complete the Read and Retell Accountability Sheet

 

After completing the Read and Retell sheet, students are able to verbally do a retell of the book that they read.

Additional Resources:
Read and Retell Cards can be used in a small group or in a workstation. Each card has a short, simple paragraph on it. Students can read it and practice how well they can do a "retell." This is useful for me when first teaching students how to retell a story with as many details as they remember. Instead of giving them a full page passage to try to retell, I give them these short cards because they are actually able to achieve this task quickly and correctly. I find that it builds their confidence because in some cases they can actually give a 100% retell! After awhile, these are too easy and I move onto full books (like above) or longer passages with more complex ideas. These cards can easily be printed onto cardstock and laminated. You can keep them all together on a ring for students to flip through, or you can keep them separated in a deck and hand out one to each student. They can even trade and listen to their partner do the retell while they check for accuracy on the card in front of them.

FCRR Retell Rings, Retell a Story, and other activities Scroll through Narrative Text Activities to find various "Retell" options

Cause & Effect Game

 After completing cause and effect activities as a whole group with books that we read together as read alouds, I thought it was important to do a quick assessment on whether my students could put what we had learned to the test. I created these cards: Cause and Effect Cards  and passed one out to each student. I simply told students that half of them had a "cause" and half of them had an "effect." Students read the cards, then moved around the room to find their match.

For example:
Cause Card: Your shoes are untied.
Effect Card: You trip and fall.

When each student had found their match, they stood back to back and waited for others to find their matches. That way, nobody would come ask them what they had (and waste time) because they visibly already found their partner.

When everyone had found their "match," each pair read their cards aloud to the class. Students started with the CAUSE being read first and then said "SO" and then the EFFECT card was read second. The rest of the class agreed or disagreed with whether the two matched up or not. Also, the class agreed and disagreed as to whether they had the "cause" correct and the "effect" correct (and not mixed up.)

This activity worked out great and within about 10 minutes I was able to see how well the class as a whole could put what they knew about cause and effect into "effect" in real-word situations.

Resources:
Cause and Effect Cards
*Cards can be added to or changed, you'll see the idea once you look at the cards.