Cover the text with a piece of paper to help the students use their comprehension skill instead of their reading skills. Help the children to remember key text in the book that may contain appropriate vocabulary words that the students will choose following the retelling activity. Have the students choose words from the story that may be somewhat familiar to them or words that they may not be familiar with at all. It is important that the students choose the words. Suggestions may have to be given to help the children to pick nouns from the text.
Nouns are easier for children to define and understand at a younger age.
Students will use our list of vocabulary words to create a new story with their own imagination. The list was given to second grade students to create a story on their own and the first graders did the story together with the help of a teacher. After the story was written, the vocabulary words were highlighted and the students reviewed the words by reading them together as a group. This helped the younger students to become familiar with the words. The definitions of the words were given to the students.