Retell before generation: Why you might consider targeting narrative retell BEFORE generation 👇🏼

We can break narrative tasks into two general categories: retell and generation.

To quickly recap...

⭐️ RETELL involves the "retelling" of a selected probe story

⭐️ GENERATION involves the production of a new, novel story

🤔 So why should I target narrative retell BEFORE narrative generation? 🤔

Well, I should preface: this answer may not apply to everyone, but I would venture to say it applies to MOST! Okay, now here's the short answer 👇🏼👇🏼

Narrative retell is effective in helping children to establish the "schema" or structure of a story.

Why is that important...? Glad you asked!

⭐️ Children are able to use the learned schema to more easily produce their own fictional and personal narratives

⭐️ Establishing a story schema reduces the cognitive load associated with narrative generation (remember, narrative generation is a VERY involved and complex language task)

⭐️ Establishing a story schema enables a child to create an infinite number of novel stories

What are other benefits of starting with retell?

👉🏼 The task is academically relevant (i.e., story recall is part of most elementary curriculums)

👉🏼 Retell can be viewed as an investment, creating a strong foundation for narrative generation skills

👉🏼 Retell facilitates language comprehension in a functional and relevant context

That all being said, I want to make something clear:

🚨Narrative retell is NOT a prerequisite for narrative generation🚨

Based on my review of the current literature and my personal clinical experience, I have found that targeting retell first (whether it be for a short amount of time or a lengthy amount of time), has made narrative generation skills easier to facilitate.

What are your thoughts? Drop them below! 👇🏼👇🏼