Research Abstract:

This study examined the oral retelling abilities of 3 regular education kindergarten students.  An alternating treatment design with no initial baseline was utilized. After listening to a story, and participating in a whole group retelling experience, students were asked to orally retell the story to the teacher.  During the intervention phase, the participants had the opportunity to retell the story with a peer before retelling it to the teacher. Based on the scores obtained using a Story Retelling Checklist, the ability of all 3 students to retell stories improved, however the peer retelling intervention did not result in significant increases in scores, though it most likely contributed to the overall increase in scores. Additionally, over the course of this study, student retellings became more elaborate and comprehensive within individual stories and throughout the sessions. These findings support the use of Story Retelling in Kindergarten.