1. Chapter 14 Narrative Reading
Nicole Huntsman

2. What?
Narratives are used to tell stories and can be factual or author invented.
Story structure is how the story is organized. This organization helps students pull important details from the text and make generalizations.
Story elements include:
Setting: the when and where
Characters: the who or what (protagonists and antagonists arise here)
Plot: the problem or conflict, sequence of events to overcome conflict, and the resolution
Theme: the BIG IDEA the author is trying to convey

3. Recognizing Story Structure
Recognizing story structure aids students in their ability to ask and answer questions, monitor comprehension, predict and preview, make text connections, construct mental images, and retell or summarize.
Strategies before, during, and after reading:
Story maps can help in recognize story structure by creating a visual aid. These can be used effectively both before and during reading.
Asking questions encourages active reading.
Answering questions helps jumpstart student thinking to push for deeper analysis. Bloom’s Taxonomy serves as an aid in question formulation.

4. Strategies before, during, and after reading cont. :
Monitoring Comprehension tracks progress of understanding.
Connecting to World Knowledge
Helps students to understand text by
making connections to their lives.
Predicting helps focus students attention
while they are reading text.
Constructing Mental Images increases students’ chance to follow text and maintain understanding of events.
Summarizing helps assess student comprehension as well as guides towards deeper understanding of the text.
Think-alouds help students say what they are thinking and verbalize their comprehension.

5. Developmental Levels of Summarizing
Emergent
Focus on event listing and sequencing
Introduce basic story elements
Early Fluent
Help students apply basic elements in both written and oral forms
Introduce main event identification
Model and guide retelling events
Fluent
Introduce plot summary
Practice refining sequencing and other elements in retelling

6. Multiple-Strategy Instruction Program: TSI
TSI = Transactional Strategies Instruction
TSI covers a wide range of theories, all involving “transactions.”
Transactions include:
Those between reader and text,
Those between readers, and
Those between reader and instructor.

7. TSI Strategies Reader Response Discussion Oriented Instruction
Personal interactions with the story
Discussion Oriented Instruction
Teacher directed questioning
Student directed questioning
Open ended questions
Writer’s Response
Personal, Narrative, and Critical

8. Why?
Understanding story structure is important because it helps students to:
Remember the story.
Understand “sameness” across a variety of texts.
Understand the author’s message in a broader context.

9. When?
Comprehension instruction should begin at earliest levels of text interaction and continue throughout education.
Comprehension instruction must be presented with reliable assessment
HOWEVER…
Most tradition assessments are inadequate in that they:
Confuse comprehension with vocabulary, background knowledge, and other reading skills.
Fail to represent the complexities of comprehension.
Do not explain why or where a student may be struggling.

10. How to supplement formal assessment
Use informal assessments like:
Retellings
Student think-alouds
Process-focused practices
These will help better identify areas of strengths and weaknesses.

11. How?
Multiple strategies are available to aid in Narrative Reading Instruction.
CROWD – Teacher prompted questioning
Completion, Recall, Open-Ended, Wh- (who, what, when, where), Distancing
PEER – Student retelling of story
Prompt, Evaluate, Expand, Repeat

12. These lesson plans discuss the following tools:
Scaffolding – Slowly turning over reading to students after repeated readings
For detailed lesson plans on teaching students to recognize story structure as well as utilize it to enhance comprehension, see pages of the text.
These lesson plans discuss the following tools:
Story Maps
Theme Identification Questioning (used after story map completion)
Comprehension Strategies and Questions in multiple forms
Prediction Activities
Think-Alouds

13. Lesson Tools cont.
“Fix-Up” Strategies (encouraging students to problem solve while reading)
Choral Readings of story
Book Club
Written responses that are personal, creative, and critical
Tripod Response Sheets (support Book Club writing tool)

14. Conclusion
Teaching students to recognize story elements in narrative texts encourages good reading practices from the first introduction into reading and all the way through education.
While assessment is necessary, traditional assessments are often ineffective and need to be accompanied by more engaging informal assessments
Comprehension strategies are best taught in a variety of ways.