I’m excited to share this post with you on how to teach Story Structure to children. While it was written from my perspective, it was a combined effort with my colleague and dear friend JaNeal Freeman. I have learned so much from her over the past few years about stories. She is a gifted writer with a brilliant mind. She is the author of all the stories in our iPad app, Little Stories (Lite and Pro). I am so grateful she has shared her talents with all of us through her writing. Her stories are clever and creative and sure to delight both the young reader and their reading helpers. Collaborating with her over the past few years has been a real joy for me. I hope you enjoy this post and find it useful in helping you teach story structure to your little ones.
This past year I had the opportunity to volunteer in my daughter’s 2nd grade classroom. Every week I listened to children read and then retell a story. There were several students who struggled to know how to organize a story in such a way that they could retell it and have it make sense. I created some worksheets with my colleague, JaNeal Freeman, that really helped these students retell stories with more confidence and accuracy. We’d like to share those worksheets with those of you who are trying to teach story structure to your students or children.
Stories are an important form of communication. A story can be poignant, like when we share a meaningful moment from life, or it can be more ordinary, like when we tell someone about a great movie. Either way, story sharing is a way we connect with one another. Story is also a tool to help us understand the events of our lives more coherently. Still, storytelling is a skill and even at its most basic levels, it can be a challenge for some children to learn. When we teach children how to tell stories, we teach them to become better communicators.
In my experience, the best way to teach narrative to young children is to help them identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story. You might teach them to tell a story by using transition words ( e.g. first…, then…, and finally…) to represent and organize the beginning, middle, and end. While this will result in a sparse retell, the goal is to work with narrative in manageable chunks. But these are not random chunks—these are structures. All stories have a beginning, middle, and an end.
For example, you can break the story of The Three Little Pigs into three parts by saying,
Beginning: First, there were three little pigs that built three houses.
Middle: Then, a big bad wolf came along and threatened to blow their houses down.
End: Finally, the three little pigs found safety in the third pig’s home made out of brick.
You may notice that the above example acts more like a summary than a story. One reason for this is that The Three Little Pigs has multiple episodes (three pigs in three houses). It’s important to note that a story can have a single episode and still be complete. While such stories may be harder to come by (even in children’s literature), a simple story with a single episode is my preferred go-to when I begin teaching narrative.
The Five Story Structure Elements
When a child has mastered the simple idea of beginning, middle, and end, they are ready to begin working with more distinct and purposeful structures. A story told with the five story structure elements results in a fully formed narrative. While a story with these elements may be very short, it will feel and sound complete.
In fact, more complex stories generally contain a repetition of the second and third structures (complication and action). This story model is plot-driven and, thus, focuses on the basic skeleton or structure of narrative. Here is a basic overview of our simple and yet foundational approach:
Orientation: The orientation is the launching point of a story where the characters are introduced and their current circumstances are presented. It’s the Who? and What? that sets up the story.
“Who are the characters and what are they doing when the story begins?”
Complication: The complication is when a problem or condition arises that upsets the norm and pushes the character(s) to act.
“What happened or what is the problem?”
Action: The action is the efforts characters make to transform the situation and service their story goals.
“What did the characters do to fix the problem?”
Resolution: The resolution is the point in a story where the complication is worked out or resolved. It’s the moment of triumph or success over the problem.
“What happened that fixed things near the end of the story and how did it all turn out?”
Ending: The ending is the signal that a story is over, often tying up loose ends, adding commentary, and enhancing the resolution.
“How are the characters feeling or what are they doing now that the problem is solved?”
Download our Story Structure Elements PDF from the free downloads page for a printable visual reference.
The Story Structure Elements are a workhorse for narrative. They serve as a framework that can help with both oral and written narrative tasks. They are useful for those who are challenged by language tasks as well as for those who could spend endless hours crafting creative stories. They really are for everyone.
The Story Structure Cue Cards
We created story structure cue cards as prompts for children while they retell or write stories. These cue cards help children learn to organize and retell story events in the correct order. These cards are designed so you can cue the story structure elements with one side and the transition words with the other. The story structure elements help children identify the important parts of the story while the transition words help them connect ideas and prevent gaps in the story.
These cue cards are designed so you can easily print, cut, and laminate them for repeated use. I punch a hole in the upper left corner and put the cue cards on a binder ring. This keeps them together and makes them easy to flip through. I’ve outlined a few steps below to help familiarize a child with these story structure cues.
1. Teach what each story structure element means.
2. Have the students practice putting the story structure elements (the side with the big icons) in order.
3. Have the student identify the story structure elements in a story. For example, read part of a story to the child and then ask them to tell you if that sounds like the orientation, complication, action, resolution, or ending.
4. Practice associated transition words common in story.
a. Orientation: Once there was a _______ who…, One day…, First…, First of all…
b. Complication: But…, Then…, However…, All of a sudden…
c. Action: So…, Next…
d. Resolution: Finally…, Eventually…
e. Ending: Now…, In the end… As a result…, In conclusion…, And that is why/how…
5. Have the student retell a story using the story structure cue cards as prompts. The child may flip through the prompts as they retell a story.
6. Have the child create their own story. Encourage them to use the cards to help them include each story element in the proper order.
Now, let’s retell the story of The Three Little Pigs again using the transition words above. In the exercise below, you will see how the story is more developed than our first example where we simply told the beginning, middle and end of the story.
1. Orientation: Once there were three little pigs who each built a home of their own.
2. Complication: But the big bad wolf came along and blew down the first two pigs’ homes.
3. Action: So, the first two pigs ran to the third pig’s home for safety.
4. Resolution: Finally, the big bad wolf tried to blow down the third pig’s house. It was made of brick, so he couldn’t blow it down.
5. Ending: Now the three pigs are safe in the third pig’s home, and the big bad wolf can’t bother them anymore.
In this retelling of The Three Little Pigs, you will notice that this summary is highly condensed. Like many classic and modern tales, this story follows the pattern of the rule of three. When we flush out the orientation and repeat the three complication-action episodes more deliberately, the story is shaped even more like the tale we have come to know.
1. Orientation: Once there were three little pigs who left home to build houses of their own. The first little pig built a house of straw. The second little pig built a house of sticks. The third little pig built a house of bricks.
2. Complication: But the big bad wolf came to the first little pig’s house. The wolf blew the house down because it was only made of straw.
3. Action: So, the first little pig ran to the second pig’s home for safety.
4. Complication: But the big bad wolf came to the second little pig’s house. The wolf blew the house down because it was only made of sticks.
5. Action: So, the first two pigs ran to the third pig’s home for safety.
6. Complication: But the big bad wolf came to the third pig’s house, and he said he would blow it down.
7. Action: So, the three pigs told him to go ahead and try.
8. Resolution: Finally, the big bad wolf tried to blow down the third pig’s house. It was made of brick, so he couldn’t blow it down.
9. Ending: Now the three pigs are safe in the third pig’s home, and the big bad wolf can’t bother them anymore.
My eight year old daughter, knowing the story of The Three Little Pigs very well, pointed out that some of the most entertaining details are missing in the example above. For example, there are those three memorable moments when the Big Bad Wolf says, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.” It is true that the story lacks its luster, but its skeleton is undeniably there. The point of this example is to demonstrate how using the transition words helps make sure all the key plot elements are included in the story. As children progress as storytellers, their experience in narrative will become richer as you encourage them to add details such as dialogue and descriptive passages. Still, don’t nudge them into this space too quickly. In the early stages, praise them when these extras arise, but keep your focus on the story structure.
The story structure cue cards are straightforward and adaptable. The Story Structure Cue Cards sheet outlines six ways to use them, but I am sure there are more. I hope you’ll keep them with your teaching tools, and that you’ll pull them out often. In my opinion, they are indispensable!
You can download our Story Structure Cue Cards worksheet on the free downloads page.
The Story Organizer
After the story structure elements are learned, a child is then ready to use a story organizer. Our story organizer allows a child (even one without writing skills) to capture story details on paper. This tool can enhance memory and organization in both retell and writing exercises. In the story organizer sheet below, there is a small box for the student to do a quick stick-drawing to represent each part of the story (pictograph). This simple stick drawing acts as a prompt to remind the child to include each part of the story when they retell or write it.
One of the benefits of doing a quick drawing instead of writing words is that it encourages children to break away from the story text. This in turn helps children come to the story with their own words. Stick drawings are encouraged specifically because they are less time consuming to produce than detailed drawings of the story. This is not supposed to be an illustration of the story; it is a quick task to aid memory and organization. Many children will benefit from a walk-through of this exercise. Pull out the Story Organizer and draw out the story details as you outline the story. Show your learner what a quick and easy stick drawing looks like. Perhaps add a few words to add emphasis or to prompt key details like character names. Be complete but sparse. Even you will get better the more you practice this. Most important of all, have fun. Make this a story activity, not a story drill.
Teresa Ukrainetz, a speech-language pathologist and professor at Utah State University, has done extensive work with pictographs. She says, “The pictographic representation of narratives is a useful strategy for both developing language and compensating for weak writing in individual and inclusive language intervention settings.” For additional information see her article, “The Immediate Effects of Pictographic Representation on Children’s Narratives”.
You can download the Story Organizer worksheet on the free downloads page.
I hope you enjoy using this worksheet as much as I have. As a practitioner, it has been interesting for me to watch my students grapple with and then grasp story concepts as they work through this exercise. It gives me a peek into their thinking process, and it helps me better understand how they process narrative. I believe that because this is a “drawing” activity it feels less threatening to a student, but trust me, it is serious work, too!
Tracking Progress and Other Story Work
As a speech-language pathologist I am always looking for measurable ways to track progress. So, of course, developing an effective way to measure a child’s understanding of story structure through story retell was very important to me. There are a lot of different ways of taking data, so if you have a system that works for you, I encourage it.
If you’d like to check out the system we created, you can try it for free on three different stories in our app Little Stories Lite, for iPad. We created Little Stories (Lite and Pro) to target Speech, Language and Literacy goals. Each story is 100 words, which makes it a manageable length to get through in a quick therapy session. The Pro version of Little Stories has 82 stories to choose from which gives you a lot of story options.
In the retell section of our Little Stories app, you can have the child listen to the story or read it. Then you can record the child as they retell the story. After the child has finished retelling the story you can score their response by playing back their retell, and while listening, scoring their responses. Five questions are asked to measure how well they did at including each of the five story elements in their retell. For example, the first question asks, “Did the student begin the story by introducing the characters and scene? Then the user selects, “Yes,” “No,” or “Somewhat.” If you are not sure how to evaluate their responses, we have provided examples of appropriate responses. After answering all five questions the student receives a score for their retell.
I always like to record the child retelling the story in our story retell activity before I do any teaching so I can get a baseline of how well they understand story structure. If I discover they need more support retelling the story, I like to do the sequencing activity in Little Stories next. The sequencing activity breaks the story up into 4 of the 5 story elements we discussed above (Orientation, complication, action, and resolution). It is a shorter, simpler version of the story.
After the child has sequenced the story, I pull out the Story Organizer worksheet. (Not included in the app. You can download it on the free downloads page.) Then I have them do a quick pictograph for each part of the story. Usually a child will need prompts and other guidance when they first begin working with pictographs. When a student seems ready, I have them retell the story again using their pictographs. After they get good at retelling the story using their pictographs, I have them retell stories using the Story Structure Cue Cards which can also be downloaded on the free downloads page. When they have mastered retelling stories with the cue cards, then I have them practice retelling stories with no prompts at all.
Once a child has mastered retelling the story, meaning they remember to include each story element when retelling the story (without prompts), I encourage them to add more details and expression to their story. Finally, when they can retell a story with all the story elements, interesting details, and good expression, I congratulate them for becoming master storytellers. A fun way to celebrate their success may be to have a story festival where the students can tell each other stories. Another fun way to celebrate their achievements is to record their oral stories in a way that could be shared with their parents or guardians. They may also like to write their stories down to save in a book. After all, stories are more fun when they are shared!
This post is long, but we wanted to bring our best and give you our best. Story is a gift. It is loaded with potential for learning and connecting. Whether a story is written in a book or told orally, whether it is silly or serious, whether it is centuries old or a new release, it holds a distinct place in language and culture. JaNeal and I have both felt the power of a well-told story. We have been in classes and have seen it bring a hush on the restless. We have seen it invite laughter and group play. Very significant to us, we have seen it act as an equalizer among children of different abilities and needs. Story brings learning, and that is important to us. But perhaps most important of all, story helps us understand each other. It helps us navigate life.
So, here’s our invitation. Use story. Use it to teach. Use it to connect. Use it to bring out the best in yourself and others. And, if our resources help you do this, we will be grateful for the opportunity we had to share them.
Heidi Hanks has been a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist since 2000. She graduated from Utah State University where she completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She began her career in early intervention and eventually started her own private practice where she has worked primarily with pre-K through school-age kids. She is the founder of Little Bee Speech Apps and lives in beautiful Utah with her husband and 4 children.
JaNeal Freeman entered the world of speech-language pathology when she and her pre-school child enrolled in an early intervention program provided by their school district. In this setting she worked with wonderful professionals who encouraged her to surround her child with target sounds through purposeful language. Being an avid reader and writer of children’s stories, she quickly came to recognize a gap in the stories that were available for such specific needs. This became a major motivation for her to earn a master’s degree in reading with a concentration in storytelling from East Tennessee State University. JaNeal loves how working for Little Bee Speech brings plenty of opportunities to use her creative and critical thinking. She also loves working with the Little Bee team!
For an in-depth look at some of her work, see “Speaking of Stories: An Exploration of Oral Stories as an Intervention in Speech Sound Disorders,” Storytelling, Self, Society. Vol. 12: Iss. 2. Wayne State University Press.
