Story Structure Hop

This is an activity that I have been using for the last month but was too lazy to take a picture/write about it. My client has problems writing and retelling a complete story. During assessment he would either say a few words about a story or else write down a sentence to tell a story. I have been explicitly teaching him 4 main parts of a story: setting (including character, place, and time), problem, action to solve problem, and result. We started by just listening to basic oral stories and then matched direct sentences from the story to the different parts. Once he recognized the 4 parts, I wanted to do something a little more active.

I bought cheap foam rectangles from Joann's and printed off category cards for each story structure component. I let him choose which color he wanted for each element (e.g. red for problem). After direct teaching and modeling the use of the story squares, we now use them for brainstorming and retelling. For example, as I read a familiar or unfamiliar story, he will hop to the part of the story as I read. He also creatively plans a written story by hopping to each square and brainstorming that part.

Yesterday proved that the squares work because as I read him a spooky Halloween story, he asked if he could use the squares to remember all of the parts. He also used his finger on the desk to point to invisible space as he was visualizing the squares in his head. It was pretty cool. His storytelling has improved drastically since the first day of therapy.

Sorry for the horrible picture; I was lazy and forgot the category cards and blurriness :)