On Feb 15, 2008, at 9:09 AM, Kendra Carroll wrote: > I have taught younger children as well. What do you expect from a 2nd > grader's retell? This is my first year and am stumped by their > comprehension as I said in an earlier message. When I ask a child to > retell a book, I give them little to no proding. Our assessment tool > also requires that we not lead except with leads like... tell me > more... what happens next..., etc. I'd appreciate any feedback.
I would expect a second grader to be able to name the main character and tell the main gist of the story, with a few details thrown in, hopefully in chronological order. That would be at the very basic. After much instruction, modeling, etc., I would expect a second grader to tell me the beginning, main character, problem and solution OR a few chronological events, and the ending, either without prompting or with minimal prompting. As for saying, "tell me more".... that's about what I do anyway, simply because I don't want to taint their response in any way. If I feel like they are almost there, I might ask something like, "what happened next?" or "can you tell me more about that?" or even refer to a character, i.e., "Can you tell me about what happened with her friend?" or whatever. As an additional note, I read an article written by Brian Cambourne about "low readers" (and this is in quotes because I'm sure it's not the language he used but I am not going to go look) and how they often have a tendency to retell every little unimportant detail, rather than the main gist of the text. I have found this to be true myself, and when I find this happening, I try to get the child to go back and tell me "the most important parts" which may or may not be successful. (Note to Brian, if you're reading this, I apologize in advance for honing in on this one thing from the article, which of course had much, much more in it.) Renee "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ~William Butler Yeats _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
