Are you looking for a fun way for students to practice retelling fictional texts? I have the PERFECT activity I use to work on story elements in an engaging way. Students play a dice game to answer various comprehension questions. Read on to find out how I use this activity with my students!
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What is Roll-a-Retell?
Roll-a-Retell is a dice game for comprehension practice. Students roll a dice and answer a question that corresponds to the number they rolled. They can answer the question orally or in a written response.
Setting up the Activity
Decide which comprehension skills you would like to focus on with the activity. Some suggested skills include: retelling, character analysis, story elements, making connections, and theme.
Create 6 questions stems for each skill you'd like to include. You can easily differentiate the activity by the skills and difficulty level of the questions you use. You may want to scaffold the questions and increase difficulty based on the number. (Think Bloom's Taxonomy). For example if you're working on characters, a #1 question could be "Who was the main character" while a #6 question could ask "Would you be friends with the main character? Why or Why not?" After students are familiar with the activity they can create their own questions!
Choose a way to display the questions to students. You may want to create a visual for your literacy centers or on a bookmark. Digital options could be showing it on your board or with a QR Code for students to access the questions.
Before implementing the activity, decide how you would like students to respond. If they're responding orally you will not need to prep anything. But if you opt for a written response you need to decide how that will look. Some options for recording their responses are: in their Readers Notebooks, on plain notebook paper, white boards, or a specific recording sheet. I prefer using a recording sheet so I can collect it. This allows me to informally assess their comprehension as well as holds them more accountable for their work.
Ways to Implement the Activity
Guided Reading
This is my students' favorite activity to do during guided reading! After we finish reading a fiction story, we use a Roll-a-Retell game board to answer comprehension questions about the text. I select questions based on the skills that we are targeting within our group. It's a fun and easy way to informally assess students' comprehension of the text. Plus it's engaging and changes things up a bit for the students.Literacy Centers
Students can work with a buddy to complete this activity during centers. They can each read an individual book or read a book together. After finishing the book(s), the students take turns rolling the dice. You may opt to have students orally respond to the questions or have them write down their answers.
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**Tip for Centers Setup!**
I love using 2-sided frames for centers. It is easy to print off directions and keep at the table where students are completing the centers activity. For the Roll-a-Retell activity, I place the questions I want students to answer in the frame. Super simple way to keep things organized!
Independent Reading
Students can also complete this activity during independent reading. After they read a fiction book, they can answer comprehension questions about the story. This is the perfect opportunity for reading response in students' Readers Notebooks.
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| Click to download the boards I use! |
Have you used the Roll-a-Retell activity with your students? Share your tips for implementing this or similar activities in the comments below!
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love it! thanks so much for putting this together
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