Retelling as a Literacy Assessment

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Table of Contents

Scenario
Retelling/Comprehension Summary; Fiction Retelling Rubric
Assessment Summary
Analysis of the Experience
The Development of the Comprehension Skill
References

Scenario

Retelling is the effective tool to assess the students comprehension of the text while reading with references to understanding the order of events and key points of the story. Retelling is important to assess the students abilities in constructing the texts and organizing the responses to the guided questions if they are necessary. Moreover, retelling is helpful for the teacher to pay attention to the points which are added or inferred by students while retelling the texts (Gunning, 2010, p. 91-92).

To conduct a retelling assessment, a student from the second grade was selected with the help of the classroom teacher. The age-appropriate text for reading was chosen to assess the retelling (Tadpole Teasing by Kara Waite) (Waite, n.d.). Tadpole Teasing is a fiction book that is why the Retelling Rubric and Scoring Form for fiction is used to assess the students skills in retelling.

Before asking to start reading the story, I drew the students attention to the fact that I would like to listen to her retelling the story after reading. The student started reading the text. The reading was rather good and relevant for the students age and level. When the reading was finished I asked the student to retell the text. To guarantee the correct and full retelling of the story, I used the following phrase, Pretend I have not read the story.

Please, tell it to me. To record the retelling, a dictaphone was used. I took notes while the student was retelling the story in order to fix the details omitted or added to the plot. The retelling was guided with the help of questions to get more information and assist students to cope with some difficulties experienced with retelling. The guided questions are taken from the appropriate retelling form (How does the story start? Do you know the main characters and can you tell me something about them? Tell me about the problem/conflict/situation of the story. What are the most important things that happen in the story?). The students responses to the guided questions were recorded.

The student retold the story in clear language, using the full sentences organized sequentially. When the retelling was finished I asked the student about her desire to add any details to the retelling. The student concentrated on the fact that tadpoles discussed in the story were rather cruel in relation to the main character Taddy because they liked teasing.

Retelling/Comprehension Summary; Fiction Retelling Rubric

Retelling/Comprehension Summary

Retelling Summary

__Retelling attempted	Fully	Partially	Minimally
Fiction text:
identified and recalled setting	______	__X____	______
identified and talked about main characters	__X___	______	______
identified the sequence of story events	__X___	______	______
identified main idea/theme	__X___	______	______
related characters and ideas to own experience	____	___X___	______
Non-fiction text:
identified the key main ideas	______	______	______
identified the important supporting details	______	______	______
identified the organization of the ideas	______	______	______
related the ideas to prior knowledge or experiences	______	______	______
__ Retelling was prompted	______	______	___X___

Comprehension Summary
The student started the story mentioning the main character Taddy who was a tadpole (identification of the main character). It was stated that Taddy was like the other tadpoles (identification of the other characters). But Taddys legs became to grow, and the other tadpoles were teasing Taddy. The student focused on the fact that they said Taddy was strange and odd because Taddy was not like the other tadpoles anymore (identification of the main idea/conflict). The student concluded that tadpoles were cruel to Taddy (partial relation to experience). But then the tadpoles legs became to grow too, and they saw they were frogs (Tadpoles were not frogs, but they were becoming frogs). The student emphasized that tadpoles understood Taddy was growing faster. The student concluded that tadpoles were excited to become frogs.

Comments and Follow-up Suggestions:

The student provides the retelling of the story in clear and full sentences, focusing on the main characters and main points of the story. The retelling was prompted minimally with references to the guided questions.

The main characters and the main idea of the story were identified fully, the sequence of events was followed, and the situation was partially related to the experience (the focus on the tadpoles teasing typical for people). The comparison of teasing tadpoles and people was prompted.

The setting was not accentuated in the story that is why the student experienced some difficulties while guessing the setting. The student was asked to state what the home of tadpoles was. The student answered that it was a lake basing on the pictures.

While retelling the story, the student omits such details as Taddys growing back legs first and than front legs, and changes with a tail, focusing only on the fact of the legs growing.

The idea of the story was grasped successfully, and the associated events were retold in sequence. The structure of the story was followed strictly.

It is necessary to draw the students attention to details and relation of the events to the experience in order to draw conclusions about the storys conflict more effectively.

Number	Proficient (3)	Competent (2)	Novice (1)
3	Provides a complete telling of beginning, middle and end of story	Provides a beginning, middle and end of story	Does not distinguish between beginning, middle and end of story
2	Provides essential details of characters, setting, plot/theme	Identifies characters, setting, plot/theme with some details	Details of major components: characters, setting, plot/theme not complete or missing
3	Correctly identifies problem, conflict or situation of story	Identifies story problem/solution	Incorrect/leaves out identification of problem
3	Correct sequence when retelling	Sequence of retelling closely matches story	Retelling not sequential
2	Retelling requires no prompting	Retelling requires minimal prompting	Retelling requires many prompts

13	Total

Fiction Retelling Rubric

Scoring directions: Score the retelling with one number score for each of the areas.

Points: 07	Student would benefit from review reading at a lower reading level.
Points: 814	This student is a competent at retelling but would benefit from activities to improve comprehension and detail retention.
Points: 15	Student is a proficient at retelling and reading comprehension.

Prompt suggestions (the recorded responses to guided questions):

How does the story start?
- There was Taddy. Taddy was a tadpole.
Do you know the main characters and can you tell me something about them?
- Taddy is the main character of the story. Taddy was a tadpole, like the other tadpoles. The other tadpoles are also the characters of the story. They were teasing Taddy when Taddys legs grew, and they said it was strange.
Tell me about the problem/conflict/situation of the story.
- Taddys legs grew, and Taddy was not like the other tadpoles anymore. It looked strange. The other tadpoles were teasing Taddy because it was not like tadpoles. They said it was odd. Tadpoles were cruel to Taddy.
What are the most important things that happen in the story?
- Tadpoles legs became to grow, and they saw they were frogs. Tadpoles understood Taddy was growing faster. Tadpoles were excited to become frogs.

Assessment Summary

Having examined the students results according to the Fiction Retelling Rubric, it is possible to state that the student is a competent at retelling, but she would benefit from the activities to improve comprehension and detail retention. The student distinguishes the beginning, middle, and end of the story, retelling the associated events completely. The sequence of events is also followed strictly. The main characters, conflict, and idea are identified and described correctly. The retelling is prompted minimally with the help of the basic guided questions. Thus, the student comprehends the story, its characters, and conflict correctly, with a rather high level of competence.

Nevertheless, the students concentration on details is not enough. Retelling the story in sequence, the student omits some details described in the book. Thus, the student does not tell about Taddys growing back legs first and than front legs and about Taddys tail becoming smaller as the points to surprise the other tadpoles and leading to the conflict. The details which are provided by the student are not essential. It is important to pay attention to the students focusing on details and the detail retention with the help of the appropriate activities.

The student required some prompts to speak about the connection of the storys conflict and the personal experience. That is why, it is important to work on context and improve the students understanding of the conflict with references to the experience in order to draw correct conclusions about the main idea of the story. Thus, the main idea and conflict of the story were identified correctly, but with omitting the necessary details helpful to understand the situation and draw conclusions.

Analysis of the Experience

The retelling assessment is necessary to examine students abilities to comprehend the material while reading age-appropriate texts. Moreover, I have learnt that retelling the text orally, the student develop his or her abilities and skills in constructing texts independently. Retelling is more effective than the process of answering questions about the story because students concentrate on the information they remember, try to organize it similarly to the structure of the text, and learn how to determine the conflict and main idea and describe characters.

Thus, focusing on the aspects of the students retelling the story, it is possible to determine the weaknesses in the students grasping the main idea, remembering details, or organizing the events in sequence. The concentration on the students abilities to comprehend the text with the help of retelling is necessary to develop strategies to overcome the possible difficulties and improve skills.

The benefits of retelling assessments for teachers is the ability to concentrate on the full picture of students understanding the text with references to the skills of presenting the correctly organized text with necessary details. When students answer questions, they rarely present the additional information. Retelling the text, students can add or infer some details, and the teacher can conclude about the level of students comprehending the text with the help of the Retelling Rubric and Retelling/Comprehension Rubric.

The score determined after retelling helps focus on the aspects of the students skills which require their further development. The teacher is able to discuss the individual abilities of students to comprehend and retell texts and respond to their needs. The benefits for the students are in abilities to improve their retelling with references to the score and control the results basing on the retelling/comprehension score to satisfy the comprehension and retelling needs.

The Retelling Rubric helps assess the main aspects of the students comprehending the story which are the identification of the structure, setting, plot, characters, idea and conflict, and order of events. The Retelling/Comprehension Rubric also helps assess students abilities in relating the idea of the story to the students experience. Thus, to complete the task effectively, there should be guided questions asking students to relate the storys characters and events to their own experience while discussing the main idea or conflict because students can experience difficulties while providing such information and drawing conclusions without the necessary prompts. I am inclined to use the question about students experience as a prompt to conduct the next retelling assessments.

The Development of the Comprehension Skill

Basing on the results of the retelling assessment, it is necessary to focus on and remediate such comprehension skill as the ability to provide the essential details while describing and discussing the storys plot and characters. The inability to concentrate on the essential details can prevent students from grasping the connection between the events and points which influence the storys development.
The student whose abilities to retell and comprehend the story Tadpole Teasing were assessed with the help of the Retelling Rubric demonstrated the developed abilities in organizing the retelling with following the structure of the story, in identifying characters and connecting events correctly with minimal prompts. However, there were some difficulties with presenting the necessary details about the characters and the events depicted in the story. These details are important to understand the main conflict. That is why, to improve the students comprehension, it is necessary to develop the skills in focusing on the details presented in the story not only to identify but also to provide essential details about characters, plot, and theme.
The two learning experiences or activities which can be used to introduce and practice the abilities in focusing on and remembering details with their further providing are the usage of the prediction strategy before reading and preview of the text with encouraging students to refer to predictions while reading the story. To predict the plot of the story and motivate students to focus on the details, it is important to pay attention to the title and illustrations, asking some questions: What do you think about the title of the story?, What is the theme of the story we will be reading?, What pictures are connected with the storys title?. The questions are also important to predict the setting of the story, What pictures help you understand the setting?.

After previewing the text, it is important to encourage students to refer to the predictions made in order to confirm or not any considerations and predictions made before reading. This activity helps students develop attention and concentrate on the details depicted in the story to compare them with predictions.

References

Gunning, T. (2010). Creating literacy instruction for all students. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon/Pearson Education.

Waite, K. (n.d.). Tadpole teasing. Web.

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