The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Nine

Back to storytelling.

The main elements of a classic story to introduce children to are the beginning, middle, and end. This can also be referred to as sequencing.

Take, say, one of my all-time favorite children’s stories, The Little Red Hen. Beginning: the little red hen asks for help planting wheat for bread; no animal volunteers. Middle: the little red hen asks for help milling and harvesting the wheat; no animal volunteers. End: the little red hen, having made the bread, asks who would like to help her eat it. Every animal volunteers, to which the little red hen refuses, because, of course, none of them helped when she asked for assistance.

Here are a few words on the importance of sequencing:

“Sequencing is one of many skills that contributes to students' ability to comprehend what they read. Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story — the beginning, middle, and end — and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in the order in which they occurred. The ability to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension strategy, especially for narrative texts. Sequencing is also an important component of problem-solving across subjects.” – Readingrockets.org