Teaching Children to Recall and Retell Past Events:

Children with communication challenges often have trouble retelling past events.  This may make it hard for them to tell you about something that happened or communicate clearly about past events.

In order for a child to be able to retell past events, they first must be able to answer questions about past events.  This helps us to know if they can remember the details and bring them to mind.  Once we are sure the child can do that, then we need to teach them how to put the steps to common activities in order.  This shows us that they know how to form and use sequences.

Once the child has mastered these two previous skills, they are ready to learn how to retell past events with the details in the correct order. Here are the resources for teaching this skill.

Listen to the Podcast Version of this Info:

Retelling Past Events Therapy Kit

Retelling Past Events Therapy Kit

No-Prep Therapy Worksheets for Teaching a Child to Retell Past Events

How to Teach a Child to Recall and Retell Past Events:

1. Remembering a Single Picture

  • Show them a picture and then put it away and say “What was in the picture?”

2. Answering Questions about a Book

  • Read a story and then ask specific questions about it immediately after like “Who was the main character?” and “What did he do at the ___?”.

3. Recalling Events from a Book

  • Read a story and then immediately after ask them “What happened in the story?”
  • Prompt them to tell you 3 events from the story and then put them in order.

For more information about helping a child learn to sequence, click here!

4. Answering Questions about an Immediately Past Event

  • Do something and then immediately ask the child questions about what you just did.
  • Once they can do that, move on to asking questions about something that happened right before starting to work on this.

5. Recalling Events from an Immediately Past Event

  • Do three things and then ask the child to retell the three things in order.
  • Ask the child to tell you what happened during the activity immediately before starting to work on this.

6. Answering Questions about Further Past Events

  • Ask the child questions about an event that happened a while ago, like their last meal or what they did after school last night.
  • Ask the child questions about events that happened further and further back, like their last birthday party or going to visit Grandma.

7. Recalling Events from a Further Past Event

  • Ask the child to retell three things that happened during an event that happened a while ago while keeping the steps in order.
  • Work on doing this for things that happened further and further back.

Download the Free Sequencing Game:

To help a child work on learning to sequence past events, click on the button below to download the free game:

Click Here to Grab the Free Sequencing Game

More Resources for Teaching Children to Recall and Retell:

Retelling Past Events Therapy Kit

Retelling Past Events Therapy Kit

No-Prep Therapy Worksheets for Teaching a Child to Retell Past Events

Sequencing Game for Speech/Language Therapy

Sequencing Therapy Kit

No-Prep Materials for Teaching a Child to Sequence Events

Carrie Clark, Speech-Language Pathologist

About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

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