Image result for retelling ropes with shoelaces

In the near future (sometime next week), your child will be bringing home a new reading tool in their book bag – their own retelling rope! Their rope consists of 8 colored beads threaded on a shoelace. This tool is used to help students with reading comprehension of a fictional story. Children know that comprehension happens when they understand what they read. I can test their comprehension using their retelling rope. If they can successfully retell a story to me (using their retelling rope) without going back to their book for help, then I can say they comprehended their story.

Retelling ropes are to stay in your child’s book bag and are to go home every night and come back to school every morning. Please listen to your child retell their fictional story using their retelling rope. They are very excited to use them and have been doing a great job with them so far 🙂 Because this is our new focus for the second half of the school year, you will not be seeing as many Reading Response Journal questions. For now, anytime your child brings home a new book, their homework is to read the book three times and then use their retelling rope to retell their story to someone at home.

For your reference, here are the elements of a retelling that the children must use. They start at the bottom, say the title, and move down the rope as they complete each task.

Retelling Rope

(Black) = Title

(Pink) = Characters  

(Purple) = Setting

(Blue) = First…

(Green) = Next…

(Yellow) = Then…

(Orange) = Last…

(Red) = Favorite Part and Connection

 Happy reading and retelling!

**Retelling ropes are not used with non-fiction texts.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Ms. Otto