Summarize and Retell Worksheets

Use the templates to assemble and stage a puppet show based on the story.

Introduce your little reader to some classic childhood literature, with Rudyard Kipling's charming story "The Crab That Played with the Sea."

Children learn to use the "Somebody Wanted But So Then" method to write a short summary in this literacy worksheet.

Paraphrasing is all about summing up a lengthy text, and it can be a great way to help your child hone reading comprehension skills.

Read this classic children's story — then stage a stick puppet performance of it!

Young readers respond to the books they have completed with this versatile worksheet template.

Read this charmingly illustrated story of "The Three Little Pigs" then use the finger puppets to retell it!

Teach your students to write a simple summary using an easy-to-follow set of keywords.

Your students will work together to find new vocabulary words and create a short summary of a nonfiction text related to the butterfly life cycle. Use this worksheet as an introduction to the Create a Nonfiction Text Summary lesson plan.

Children are introduced to a helpful, five-word mnemonic device for remembering what to include in a fiction summary.

Use this resource to read a nonfiction passage about sharks and write a summary.

Help students build key reading comprehension skills by creating a story map for a book that they read. Students practice retelling, identifying characters, and making connections.

Use this simple organizer to help students track and record key ideas when reading and summarizing nonfiction texts.

Students will use the Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then structure to summarize a short fiction text.

Introduce readers to the poem “When I Was One-and-Twenty” by English poet A. E. Housman with this sixth-grade worksheet! 

Help students master summarizing using keywords with this reading comprehension worksheet.

Introduce readers to the poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats with this poetry analysis worksheet!
 

Make sequencing stories more interesting than just beginning, middle, and end! This "handy" graphic organizer can be used with all fiction to help set up a concise but thorough summary using a five finger strategy.

Here's a chapter summary guide where your child can jot down the characters in a chapter, his favorite character and even predict what will happen next.

Have your movie lover read about the history of movies, and then test her reading comprehension as she arranges the events to complete a timeline.

Unwind the complicated language of the Declaration of Independence with this paraphrasing activity!

Practice writing nonfiction summaries as you read and learn about an interesting ocean creature.

Use this worksheet to encourage critical thinking and support students’ literacy development by asking questions before, during, and after reading.

Tuck this chapter summary chart into reading workshop folders to help students keep track of longer chapter books. When they finish the book, have them look back at this to create a whole-book summary!

Read about the earth's coldest land biome, the tundra, then fill in the blanks to review what you've learned.

After independent reading, have students record and reflect. Young readers will demonstrate their ability to summarize and respond to their reading, and a log is a fun way for them to track their progress. Make copies of this log to use again and again!

Students will use the Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then strategy of writing fiction summaries with these reading passages.

Use this exercise with your students to create short summaries with transition words.

Stretch student understanding of story sequencing into a summary with this graphic organizer. Students will start by jotting down quick notes to remember each part of the story, then they'll use their notes to write a complete summary of the text.

Help your students retell a simple fictional text using a paragraph frame for support! In this activity, students will read a short story about a family's camping trip and then summarize it by filling in the blanks.