Recounting Fairy Tales:
Researching the Academic
Literacy Development of ELL
Ibelis Mateo Leon
Context: Room M-4
• Description of Classroom: The classroom was split in half and divided by a cabinet, chalk board
and a free-standing bulletin board at the beginning of the school year. Then in October, the school
decided to transform the classroom into one whole wide area for kindergarten students. The process of
the move of heavy materials took a day. We were given a day without students to organize the classroom.
In fact the classroom took us about 2 weeks to get it well organized and prepared. The classroom was
turned upside down. The students in this unit were affected in the sense that I was able to instruct them in
the morning on phonics and in the afternoon on language arts and math. Now, they are only in the
classroom in the afternoon. The students do benefit from the whole open classroom because they can
now find a quiet spot for themselves without distracting other students when they need some time to
themselves. The classroom now is a kindergarten class in the morning and a Special Education/ELL class
in the afternoon.
• Total number of students: In the afternoon: 4students-2 boys and 2 girls
• Origin: 4 ELL students all native Spanish speakers from Puerto Rico
• Mixed grades: 2-3rd graders, 1-4th grader, 1-5th grader
• Students Strengths: Willingness to learn, enjoy creating classroom themed projects, enjoy peer and
• Student challenges: ELLs, ADHD, ADD, autism, communication difficulties, depression, post-trauma
disorder, eating disorder, OCD,depression and other behavioral difficulties which may impair learning
• Curriculum and Resources: Hartcourt Brace grade 1, District Reading Plan, Addison and Wesley Math
• Established Goal(s): Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a
fairytale and use them as the basis for their recount of the story. The students
will write, illustrate, and orally recount the fairytale in sequential order
(Beginning, middle and end).
• Focus: The students will only focus on one fairytale for the recount portion of
this unit, but they will be exposed to other fairytales.
• Essential Question(s)
– What important features need to be included in a recount (retelling)?
– What will intrigue or capture your audiences (kindergarten) attention?
– Recounting events must be done in an organized and sequential order
• Age: 9
• Grade Level: 3rd grade
• English Language Arts Level: 1st grade
• Native Language: Spanish Country of Origin: Bahaman, Puerto Rico,
• English Language Ability: He is considered a Phase 2 student. He is at the intermediate level of
proficiency in English. He is able to communicate his need in English, but struggles with vocabulary,
grammar, semantics and syntax in his writing.
• Background History:. He is a sweet and caring young boy. He is very shy and has difficulty making
friends because he is so quiet and soft spoken. He lives with his mother, father, brother and little
sister. He is the middle child. He speaks Spanish at home with his parents. He enjoys bike-riding and
skate-boarding with his older brother. He tends to be absent from school various times in the year.
This school year he has been absent approximately 10 days.
• Tests Scores: He has an independent D.R.A level of 4 and an instructional level of 6. He was able to
identify 44 out of 100 1st grade sight words on the First Grade Reading Assessment.
Academic Strengths and Challenges: He is able to write simple sentences (e.g. I like…) He is able
to read some first grade books, but struggles with reading words that are unknown. He has difficulty
decoding/chunking sounds. He is able to comprehend a story that is read to him, but struggles with
comprehension when he is reading a story. He uses inventive or phonetic writing when expressing his
thoughts on paper. His most challenging area is retelling events in sequential order both orally and
• Why this student?: The reason why I choose to work with him is because he is one of the highest
performing student in my class. I also choose him because he struggles with retelling events in
sequential order and I thought that he and the other students would benefit from this project. Also I
wanted him to feel confident in his writing and to motivate him to work together with his peers. (He
usually has a difficult time talking with the students in the classroom.)
• Standards : Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework - June
– Strand 8:Understanding a text: Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a
text and use them as the basis for interpretation.
• Objectives: Students will be able to:
– 8.2- retell a main event from a story heard or read
– 8.7- retell a story’s beginning, middle and end
• Students will know: stories are composed of a beginning, middle and end.
– *stories can be expressed through different mediums-- written, illustrations, orally, and
through the use of body language
• District Reading Plan 2002: Comprehension Grade 1: Retelling and Summarizing.
Summarizes import ideas in order from a story or informational passage (beginning,
middle and end).
Lesson and Scaffolding Prereading Activities
• Familiarize the students with various forms of the fairytale genre: The classroom library had various
fairytale books. In the afternoon for about 10 minutes, I read them a fairytale (e.g. The Princess and the
Pea; The Gingerbread Man)
• Building background: Before choosing the reading material for the unit, I created a “hook” for the
students by asking them questions that would create an entry point for the recount Unit. (e.g. What
makes a story interesting? Why do we tell stories? What happens if a story is told out of order? Can you
understand a story that starts at the end and ends at the beginning? Why are stories important in our
lives as children or adults? Do your parents read or tell you a story before you go to bed?)
• Student critique of a story and performance: The teacher retold a story from her childhood. Half of
the story was real and the other half was false. The story was called “In search of the “quenepas” (a fruit
common in Puerto Rico). For the students to become involved and engaged in the story, I told the story
in Spanish and then in English. After retelling the story, I asked students to critique my story based on
the following questions: What was interesting about the story? What was your favorite part? What made
the story come to life? What kept or didn’t keep your attention? What would you do if you had to retell a
• Goal and purpose of the unit was discussed in the beginning of the lesson.
• “Our class Journal:” The students had a chance to take a turn and write in their class journal. The
journal was used to retell events that may have happened in class or out of class. They had the freedom
to draw and/or write. They were encouraged to use the language they felt most comfortable using in
Lesson and Scaffolding During Reading Activities
Reading to students: Two text were used: An anthology of “The Three Bears”
and an illustrated book “The three Bears” by Paul Galdone
During the reading aloud of the anthology: I acted out and used props to
represent the parts of the story. I changed my tone of voice to emphasize and
distinguish the characters in the text. The students were prompted to predict
what they believed would happened next in the story.
During the reading of the illustrated book: I pointed to the illustrations as I read
and changed my tone of voice to emphasize and distinguish between the
characters in the story. The students were also prompted to make predictions
of what they remembered that happened next in the story.
Lesson and Scaffolding Postreading Activities
• “Good News Bear Plan Chart”: It is a picture of a bear that is juggling 5
balloons that contain the five key questions for retelling the events in a story:
When? Who? Where? What? Why? And a heart that expresses “Feeling”.
Through shared writing, the students provided the teacher with information
from the story to fill in the 5 balloons. Then they were encouraged to use a
book without words to retell the events in the story using the “Good News Bear
Plan” to jot down their ideas.
• Vocabulary Development: After reading the story, the teacher and the
students created a chart that focused on the vocabulary used to describe the 5
key questions for retelling the events in a story as well as the language
features pertaining to the fairytale genre.
• Draw and Tell: After the reading of the story, the students were required to
draw their favorite part of the story and then re-tell this portion. I then recorded
the would then write sentences the students generated.
Cont.-Lesson and Scaffolding Postreading Activities
• Story reconstruction: The illustrations used in the Draw and Tell activity were then used
again to retell the story “The Three Bears”. On the black board, I constructed a table that had
three divisions -Beginning, Middle and End. The teacher then used the students’ illustrations
to reconstruct the story by placing the pictures on the table. The students indicated if the
illustration belonged at the beginning, middle or at the end of the story.
• Word hunt/Recount Detectives: The students used a copy of the text used for this unit and
highlighted certain words that identified the “magic words”/vocabulary used to recount or tell a
story in sequential order.
• Writing/Illustrations: One student will use writing to retell the events in the story and add it to
a Big Book the students will create. The other students will use the illustrations from the Draw
and Tell activity as sketches to create new colorful illustrations for the Big Book story.
• Reteaching: Provide the students with plenty of opportunities to revisit concepts taught and
the story heard. The students did mini exercises, where they had to reorganize pictures in
• Drama: The students will retell the story “The Three Bears” to the kindergarten class. The
students created mask and paper costumes. They had a chance to practice and watch
themselves before their final performance.
• Performance Tasks:
• The students will be required to perform their recount of the
fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears in front of the class
and then in front of their target audience –Kindergarten
• What I will be assessing during their performance:
– How well are they able to retell the story in sequential order?
– Are they able to use the language of a recount?
– Is the audience taken into consideration during the recount of the
– Could the students keep the kindergartener’s attention, focus and
could the kindergartners’ follow the story’s events?
When presenting the students with their performance task, I wanted to create something that would
capture their attention, so I create a small power point that presented their performance task in a fun
and exciting way:
Agents In Training: Retelling Stories
• Your Mission:Your mission is to present your retold fairytale to a kindergarten class
– The goal is to create a fairytale that has a beginning, middle and end
– Your challenge will be to make other students understand your story
– AND keep the kindergarteners entertained long enough to listen to the story
• Your Alias (job):You are a: writer/illustrator/artist
– You have been asked to create a story for kindergarteners
– Your job is to tell an entertaining story to the kindergarten- (you could offer to read a child’s if they are too shy or have
a problem with that)
• Your Target:Your target audience: is the kindergarten class, but you will have the opportunity to practice
your story in front of our class first and get suggestions and comments on your stories
• Your Destination/ Environment: Room 1
– The context you find yourself in is a kindergarten class of 30 who will want to hear an interesting story
– Your challenge involves dealing with reading loud enough and slowly enough for the kindergarteners to hear and
• Do you Accept?
• Story maps—word web, sequence of events charts, class diary
• Art--- Puppets and costumes created by the students that will be used to
recount the story
• Writing Prompts: What part of the story do you think was the most
important? (Student Journals)
• Observations- videos, pictures, illustrations
• Final Project: The recounted story -Big Book: The three bears”
Reflections: Prereading Activities
• “…encouraging students to use their native language, you are supporting the development
of their thinking and their interaction in your classroom.” (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004)
• Evidence shown:
– My focus student’s illustration made from the story told by the teacher “The
search for the “quenepa”.
– Scanned picture of the chart created in classed during the critique
– Quotes taken from the students favorite part of the recounted by the teacher
Reflections: During Reading Activities
“Reading aloud to your English-Language learners not only makes certain texts accessible to
them, it also provides a model for expressive reading. By reading reading aloud you can
show your enthusiasm for the information, ideas, and language in the text.” ((Fitzgerald &
– Evidence Shown: DVD clip taken November 14,2006 of focus student and other students chanting
along during the re-reading of the story “The Three Bears” 1-2 minutes max add transcript as a
– Scan one of the Anthology pages and one of the illustrated story to compare
– Scan Zulies comment translated written on the during lesson unit table
Reflections: Postreading Activities
“Postreading activities encourage English-Language learners to do something with
the material they have just read, to think- critically, logically, and creatively-
about the information and ideas that emerge from their reading, and sometimes
to transform their thinking into action.” (Fitzgerald & Graves, 2004)
– Scan of student’s Good News Bear plan
– Scan of picture of vocabulary chart created in class
– Scan of illustrations/sketches
– Video of the students organizing the pictures on the table beginning, middle and end
transcript as a handout
– Scanned book of student work--highlighted with sticky notes during the word hunt/
– Scanned pictures of the big book and the students’ performance
References & Resources
• Fitzgerald, J. & Graves, M. (2003). Scaffolding reading experiences for English-Language learners.
Norwood, MA. Christopher Gorden Publishers Inc.
• Knapp, P.& Watkins, M. (2005). Genre, Text, Grammar: Technologies for Teaching and Assessing
Writing. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
• Wiggins, G.& J. McTighe.( 2005). Understanding by Design. Second Edition. Alexandria,
• The Education Department of western Australia. (1996) First Steps: Writing Resource Book.
• Every picture tells a story : http:// www. Artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2286/. Retrieved
• Springfield Public Schools Materials
– English Language Proficiency Benchmarks and Outcomes for ELL (MA, June 2003).
– Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework (MA, June 2001).
– The District Reading Plan (The public schools of Springfield: MA, 2002).