Event Arrangement

  • Lower Elementary and above
  • Can be used with 5 and 6-year-olds if pictures are used instead of sentences
  • Narrative text

    • or sequential expository text

    • Assess/develop/activate prior knowledge
    • Motivation
    • Advance organizer
    • Set purpose for reading
    • Link new information to prior knowledge
    • Work cooperatively with others
    • Communicae ideas to classmates
    • Postreading–comprehension

 

The teacher selects the main events that occur in the story. The number of main events will depend on the ages and abilities of the students. The following example would be appropriate for most lower elementary students:

  • The three bears go for a walk in the woods.
  • Goldilocks goes into the three bears’ house.
  • She eats Baby Bear’s soup.
  • She sits in Baby Bear’s chair.
  • The chair breaks.
  • Goldilocks falls asleep on Baby Bear’s bed.
  • The three bears find Goldilocks asleep on the bed.
  • Goldilocks is afraid and runs out of the house.

Strategy steps:

  1. Write each main event on a card.
  2. Present the cards to the students in mixed order.
  3. Teacher and students read and discuss the sentences on the cards.
  4. The students may work as a group or with partners (each set of partners needs a set of sentence cards).
  5. The students arrange the cards in the order in which they predict the events will occur in the story. Partners/group members must agree on the order of events.
  6. After reading the story, the children compare their prediction of the order of events with the actual sequence in the story.
  7. Teacher and class discuss clues that help determine sequence.