Introduction to task-tell what task and what is included

shows how child performed task with behaviors and retelling areas
score received and what it means
concise and objective (without opinion) avoid all I/me (report is about child)
spelling and grammer
Ashley Lennon
READ 366.003
Professor Martha Reich
March 27, 2013
The Three Billy Goats Gruff: Story Retelling by Gavin
On February 27, 2014, Gavin engaged in a reading comprehension assessment activity
utilizing the The Three Billy Goats Gruff, a retelling by Violet Findley and illustrated by Patrick
Girouard. This student was read to by the instructor and then asked to retell the story twice, first
using the book and then using story figures. Gavins diction, pitch-levels, and behavior were
monitored throughout his story retellings. The retellings were assessed based upon how similar
Gavins retellings were to the retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Violet Findley and
illustrated by Patrick Girouard.
First, Gavin listened to a read-aloud of the story and responded to discussion questions
posed throughout the reading. These discussion questions were about the characters, the setting,
the story problem, the plot, and the illustrations. Gavin was also asked to make predictions about
what would happen next at various different times in the story. At the end of the read-aloud,
Gavin was asked questions pertaining to the emotions of the characters.
Following the read-aloud, Gavin was asked to retell the story to the instructor. As the
instructor held the book, Gavin stood and retold the story by solely relying on the illustrations of
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the literature and neglecting to retain information from the written text. Gavin began by
introducing the three billy goats as Little Goat, Big Goat, and Middle Goat. Shortly after, he
informed his audience of the problem, a sneaky troll lived under the bridge. Gavins word
choice for the goats walking across the bridge were clip, clop, clip, clop.
When Gavin retold the dialect in the story, he altered his own voice and utilized higher or
lower pitches to make a distinction and signify that the troll (Gavin spoke in a deeper voice when
the troll spoke in the story) or the goats (Gavin spoke in a higher-pitched voice when the goats
spoke in the story) were speaking. As the retelling progressed, Gavin became more and more
immersed into the story. This was apparent by how exaggerated his vocal levels became, and the
exaggeration he put on specific words. For example, in the beginning, when Gavin first spoke
clip, clop, clip, clop, he only slightly raised his voice, but when Gavin talked about the goats
pushing the troll off of the bridge, Gavin raised his voice and yelled, POUNDED!
Many times, during the retelling of the story using the literature, Gavin spoke in broken
sentences; he paused, hesitated, stuttered, and corrected what he had previously said, often by
saying, I mean. Some words Gavin spoke were spoken unclear; for example, the word
through was spoken as frough. While Gavin mostly utilized simple words in his retellings,
during the retelling with the book, Gavin included the more sophisticated word, delicious. To
retell the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff using the book, Gavin focused more on utilizing
voice infliction and pitch differences rather than sophisticated diction to retell the story.
During Gavins retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff using story figures, Gavin stood
in front of a table, on which the story figures laid. A few times, Gavin shifted his weight onto the
table and lifted or moved his legs. In the beginning of his retelling, Gavin was speaking very
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quietly, but once prompted and once he became more engaged, Gavins vocal levels raised and
became more exaggerated. Gavins retelling of the story utilizing the story figures consisted of
different words than his retelling of the story with the book. Instead of calling the goats, Little
Goat, Big Goat, and Middle Goat, Gavin called the goats Baby Goat, Big Goat, and Big Big
Goat. To represent the grassy field the goats were traveling to, Gavin used a nearby green glove.
This time, during his retelling, Gavins vocal levels were much higher when he described
the goats traveling across the bridge. Again, when Gavin spoke the words of the troll, he altered
his voice to sound much deeper, and when he spoke the words of the goats, he altered his voice
to sound much higher. In comparison to Gavins retelling of the story using the literature,
Gavins retelling of the story with story figures contained more descriptive words and more
differences in his vocal levels. At the end of the retelling of the story with story figures, Gavin
included that the moral of the story was you should always be more responsible.
Gavin received an overall score of fifteen. He was awarded this perfect score because
both of his story retellings were accurate; Gavin introduced the all of the characters of the story,
described the setting, described the plot in the correct order of events, remembered to include the
story problem, the resolution, and the conclusion with character emotions. Additionally, Gavin
utilized great story language with the differences in his vocal tones to represent specific
characters, and Gavin included descriptive words to strengthen the retelling of The Three Billy
Goats Gruff.
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