Are you a speech-language pathologist, classroom teacher, parent, or special education teacher looking for ways to enhance your students’ literacy skills? Perhaps one of the most effective ways we can help our students with their overall language and literacy abilities is by using narrative interventions such as a story grammar!
What is Narrative Intervention?
Narrative intervention is a type of intervention that involves the telling and retelling of stories. Narrative language (the ability to tell stories and even recall events) is not only critical for academics, but also for life. Story telling isn’t just an academic skill, it’s also a social skill! We all love meeting our friends for dinner and hearing their stories and telling about the events in our lives too! It can even be argued that narrative language is also a major life skill. We need to be able to recount events for our own safety. Narrative language truly goes beyond the classroom and working on it can be life-changing.
What is Story Grammar?
Story grammar is a type of narrative intervention! Story grammar refers to the overall building blocks of a story. The building blocks include story elements such as character, setting, plot, problem, solution and the sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end). Story grammar is an intervention you can use across settings and grade levels.
Story Grammar Toolkit
I have created a toolkit for speech-language pathologists and other elementary school educators to work on this essential skill! This toolkit can be used not only with children with language impairments, but all students! Story grammar elements are widely taught throughout classrooms (elementary, middle school, and high school alike!) This toolkit has everything you need to teach story grammar and prepare your lesson plans!
This toolkit can be found in my membership for SLPs (Speech is Sweet Club) or in my TPT store! Let’s check it out!
Parent Letter
The first component of this toolkit is a parent letter. This is a great way to communicate with parents outside of IEP meetings and parent-teacher conferences. This letter also provides some tips and suggestions for how they can support the skill and their child’s language development at home.
Some tips you can give to caregivers include:
- read picture books at home
- go to the local library and explore books
- make up oral stories featuring the child’s favorite toys as characters
- watch a show together and discuss the sequence of events (beginning, middle, and end)
- tell folktales such as the Little Red Hen and talk about the characters
Oral stories are powerful tools and they cost nothing! I remember my mom making up her own stories to tell me, because we didn’t have access to many books. Those are some of my favorite childhood memories! Oral stories have been around for centuries and are a great way for people to connect.
Story Elements Handout
This handout provides an easy-to-read overview of story structure! This is great for parents, students, and can even be displayed in the classroom for a visual reminder!
Visual Strips and Posters
These visual strips are designed to provide students with visual cues. This is great to keep on hand and can even be taped to a students’ table! There is a color version you can laminate for durability and black/white versions so students can color them in and take them home!
Other visual clues included are mini posters! I love mini posters, because they’re so convenient!
Here are some uses for mini-posters:
- create a bulletin board entitled story elements
- laminate them and put them on a binder ring for easy access
- print out two versions and play a matching game
- print out student copies for home or classroom support
- display during your speech therapy sessions for visual cues
These mini posters are great visuals for story grammar elements!
Story Grammar Introduction Sheets
When introducing new skills that are comprised of various elements (ex. describing, WH questions, etc), I think it’s important to provide explicit instruction on each component. We have to crawl before we walk… or retell stories! haha!
There is a worksheet for each story element! Each worksheet features a visual cue in the top right-hand corner, the definition, examples, and a place to practice! These introduction sheets are a great way to teach story grammar parts.
Story Grammar Worksheets
There are ten total worksheets! Each worksheet contains a story that has clearly defined story elements and room at the bottom to identify each story element. The same visual cues found on the visual strips can be found on these worksheets! This is to help promote carryover and to make this toolkit seamless! These stories are perfect for your speech therapy sessions or to send home for home practice!
Short Story Clip Cards
I love clip cards, because they are essentially interactive task cards. On the left-hand side of each card are the various story elements and your student will move their clothespin (or any type of clip, such as a paperclip) down the visuals as they identify each story element from the given story. There are twenty clip cards included! Your students will love these fun and easily digestible short stories!
These task cards are a fun way to work on narrative structure! Between the clip cards and the worksheets, there are 30 total stories! This provides you with a large variety of short stories and I revisiting them time and again will also promote comprehension! We know through research that re-reading stories are incredibly helpful in supporting comprehension skills!
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers are powerful tools and backed by research! I have created a wide variety of graphic organizers that you can use alongside any picture book or story!
There is a visual organizer that puts it all together and sheets that tackle each story grammar element individually! I also recommend sending blank graphic organizers home with your students to support their narrative development at home! A great graphic organizer can be a game-changer!
Story Scripts
I created story scripts to help students bring it all together! This is a scrip they can use to help them with story retelling!
At the top of each story script are visual supports and a fill-in-the-blank script! At the bottom is a place for students to summarize a short story or reading passage in their own words! This is also a great place to work on transition words such as first, next, last, then, etc! This activity really helps meld all the components together and will aid in retelling stories!
Speech Therapy Rubric
Story grammar is a complex skill that has many components, so a rubric is the best way to assess it! I’ve always been a fan of authentic assessments and I think rubrics are golden! When it comes to language skills, it’s sometimes really hard to evaluate children with a simple yes/no! The rubric included also comes with a visual progress graph on the bottom! I’ve included a sample rubric too!
Narrative Language Overview
Narrative language is a keystone skill. When you improve a child’s narrative language abilities, you also improve their social skills, literacy skills, cognitive abilities, and even the quality of their life. There is nothing more powerful than to be able to tell your own story. Story grammar will not only equip students to retell the stories they read or hear, but also their personal narratives and events from their own lives.
Story retell unlocks a whole new world and helps children gain greater access to the curriculum and supports their academic achievement. If you’re an SLP working with children with language delays, I highly recommend using narrative language interventions!
Thank you so much for visiting my blog! Stay tuned, because I have more story grammar resources in development! They’ll be added into my membership, along with all of my future resources!
Need more toolkits to help you plan your language therapy sessions? Check out:
WH Questions Toolkit
Describing Toolkit
