FAIRY TALES
As part of our narrative reading comprehension program, we
introduced fairy tales. There were several reasons for this choice
Fairy
tales are well known and are retold to children in a variety of media. I felt
that if Eric were to learn commonly known stories, this would help him have a
common literary connection with other people (other than Star Wars!). This is
one of the arguments of the Core Knowledge people—children should have some
shared knowledge so that they can communicate with each other and their common
literary references will be understood. A curriculum sequence from a Core Knowledge School relies heavily on
fairy tales and fables for its early education literature.
There are
multiple variations of all fairy tales. Eric had heard and seen many of them
before he actually read them. Having different versions available allow for
informal comparing and contrasting exercises.
Fairy
tales have a simple storytelling structure. They are plot driven with a series
of events told in linear fashion. Characterizations are minimal—it is the
actual behavior of characters rather than their motivation that drive the
storyline. Sequencing and retelling of the story are made easier by having a
simple series of events to follow.
Materials:
I used this set of fairy talks produced by School Express because they are simply
told and printed in large type. Illustrations are line drawn and spare. There
are a series of comprehension questions after each story.
I typed these up while
reading the stories. We used them as a guide to help Eric fill out his story
events sheet. I tried to keep the events simple and clear. I printed out two
copies. One was used to guide filling out the story
events worksheet. The other was laminated and cut into sentence strips for
use in sequencing activities.
Examples of typed series of events
Evan-Moor--
I used some of these stories to provide a second version of the fairy tales. Eric
then filled out a story comparison worksheet to see how the stories were the
same or different
Read and
Understand, Fairy Tales and Fables
First
Fairy Tales We used some of these stories as well.