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Summarizing Stories and Short Narratives

$21

(184 customer reviews)

This resource targets summarizing stories and short narratives using the “somebody, wanted, but, so, then” summarizing structure.

This resource targets summarizing stories and short narratives using the “somebody, wanted, but, so, then” summarizing structure.

It includes everything you need for direct teaching, practice of the skill, and carryover using other texts or stories, including:

  • Informal assessment and data collection forms
  • Teaching pages
  • Visuals (posters, bookmarks, cards)
  • Graphic organizers
  • Level 1 stories (10)
  • Level 2 stories (15)
  • Level 3 stories (25)

Want to learn more about summarizing skills? Click here to read my top therapy tips, see example goals, and read a few of my favorite research articles!

Feel free to email the Speechy Musings team at hello@speechymusings.com with any questions!

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184 reviews for Summarizing Stories and Short Narratives

  1. Rachel W. –

    Great activity with wonderful visuals. My students enjoyed the stories.

  2. Nomi G. –

    Clear, visually appealing and engaging. Nice systematic way to target summarizing.

  3. Nora M. –

    Another great resource which scaffolds by levels this important skill which many of my students have as a goal. I appreciate all your hard work putting it together.

  4. Sarah J. –

    I’ve used this strategy for a number of years but didn’t have any great visuals or explicit teaching strategies. Now I do. Thank you!

  5. Ashley M. –

    Another great product! I haven’t used this strategy as much, but now that I have access to it on paper I will. Thank you!

  6. Katherine L. –

    Another slam-dunk from Shannon at Speechy Musings! This is perfect for my students.

  7. Ereeni Roulakis –

    This resource is perfect for beginning to summarize texts! The graphic organizers are clean and efficient.

  8. Kayla Megan –

    Very comprehensive activities to target summarizing skills! Love the visuals and the multiple targets.

  9. Emily S. –

    My students benefited from this structured resource!

  10. Michelle M. –

    This is an amazing resource! I love the graphic organizer for my students to use! The stories are great to practice summarizing.

  11. Susan M. –

    I feel as if I repeat the same thing every time I write about one of my Speechy Musings products! Excellent design and planning, value for money, just what I needed to help a specific child and can be used in a variety of situations and ways. Thank you for being such a brilliant support!

  12. Tracey N. –

    A great graphic organizer that helps my students target a challenging skill.

  13. Holly J. –

    This makes teaching/learning the SWBST framework SO much easier. I’m super excited to use this with my intermediate intensive support classroom.

  14. Kidd Speech Therapy Solutions –

    Another wonderful resource! Love all the visuals and options. Thanks so much for another great resource.

  15. ANGIE M. –

    This is an amazing resource! I love the visuals and the scaffolding to teach this skill.

  16. Lara K. –

    Thank you for this resource to compliment my narrative groups! Different visuals tailored to different ages are a nice touch for a school based SLP who works with all the grades.

  17. Mallory P. –

    This has been an amazing resource to use with my students in preparation for state testing!

  18. Speech Made Sweet –

    This resource really gave my students the framework to cohesively summarize a story. It kept them on track and they loved the accompanying visual supports.

  19. Chiquita G. –

    Awesome resource. When I see new products launch, I know I can add to cart automatically. This resource did not disappoint.

  20. Vanessa M. –

    I enjoyed how easy it is to use this resource to help my students summarize. Lots of visuals and I really like how it has levels of difficulties.

  21. Lori C. –

    Another great resource to target narrative skills. Comprehensive and differentiated- another great product!

  22. Kristen B. –

    Great resource! My students enjoyed the stories and did well summarizing with the visuals

  23. Fui Jinn L. –

    These were amazing! Love the visuals and the leveled practices for my students!

  24. Taylor A. –

    I have only used this a couple times so far but it has already helped those students so much! It is great for summarizing, obviously, but also retell, cohesion, and remembering the details. The resource teaches the concepts well and has good examples. I would have loved to see some shorter stories to start with, but we have made up our own to help solidify the concepts at first and it worked great.

  25. Wan Yen L. –

    This resource facilitates greatly the teaching and practice of summarizing stories. Another great product. Thank you.

  26. Sara S. –

    This resource gave great visuals for supporting my students in organizing their understanding of narratives beyond simple retell.

  27. Lisa Johnson –

    This is great resource to use with my students. Thank you!

  28. Deborah K. –

    As usual, this resource is great! I love everything made by Speechy Musings! Easy to use and with little prep, this resource is an engaging way to help students with summary and narrative skills.

  29. Emily B. –

    This is another great resource from one of my favorite creators! I love the different options for visuals and the ready made passages to use this strategy on. My students so far have been interested.

  30. Caroline V. –

    Love the leveled texts! Great to use with all grade levels that I work with.

  31. The Mobile SLP –

    I am so excited about this resource!! I am absolutely obsessed with everything Speechy Musings creates, so I was thrilled to see a resource that goes with a goal that a ton of my students are working on. I’m already seeing a difference in my students’ summarizing ability since implementing this resource with them.

  32. Cheryl W. –

    This resource was very helpful in helping my students with summarizing. I love the three levels of stories.

  33. Amy B. –

    These Summarizing stories are great to use with a variety of different students. I like the variety of different stories and ease of them being on one page. Makes it super easy to print and go!

  34. Denise S. –

    Thank you. Another great resource by Speechy Musings!

  35. Claire C. –

    Enjoyed the no prep aspect and used with a variety of ages

  36. Marlie U. –

    My students loved using this! Easy for them to follow!

  37. Jessica N. –

    This resource was exactly what I needed. Thank you!

  38. Amber H. –

    You can always count on Speechy Musings to craft an amazing product for fellow therapists. This resource is scaffolded in a way that works for younger and older students to improve engagement and buy-in. This resource is also very nice to include tiered stories to meet students where they are functioning.

  39. Jill B. –

    Students seem to always enjoy it when I use your products. The visuals are great and everything is easy to follow! Thanks for your hard work.

  40. Haley M. –

    The visuals are so helpful to teach and reinforce. My students were very successful with this product.

  41. Lynn H. –

    This is a great way to organize summarizing. I thought it was just for fiction at first, but then found that it works perfectly to teach summarizing skills with the Readworks non-fiction articles I use with some students. Great resource!

  42. Karena Haskoor –

    Great leveled resource for summarizing! Such good visuals too!

  43. Kellen B. –

    The differentiated visuals were helpful with older students

  44. Shireen G. –

    I love the practice worksheets given in this resources as well as the visuals used!

  45. Erin Proffit –

    Great product. Lots of options to adapt for a variety of needs.

  46. Kelliann’s Communication Corner –

    This is a great visual to use for students struggling to retell or with comprehension difficulties. I love the consistent language for them to use.

  47. Ann M. –

    This is an amazing resource to use for literacy time! The visuals are so helpful for many of my students. A must have for your next literacy time!

  48. Kaarin E. –

    Thank you again for creating an easy to use resource that my students enjoy, especially the clear visuals!

  49. Samantha S. –

    I love the visuals that come with this! The stories are separated by level which is perfect for my entire caseload.

  50. Erin H. –

    Thank you! My students were engaged and interested in this activity!

  51. Lauren K. –

    My students loved using this resource during small group!

  52. Shana D. –

    This resource provides a structured and systematic way to do story retell!

  53. Rachel Miller –

    This is an excellent resource! The steps are well broken down and the visuals are intuitive.

  54. Daley Speech –

    This resource is so easy to just print and use, I love the way I have it set up in a binder so I can just grab it and go. It’s engaging and visually appealing for my students too, which we both love!

  55. Megan S. –

    Another great resource!! Summarizing is difficult for a lot of my students and this has been super helpful for giving them a framework and lots of practice.

  56. La Maestra de Speech –

    So helpful! I’ve seen more progress with story sequencing/retelling since buying this than I’ve seen all year combined. thank you!

  57. Jennifer P. –

    Such a good one! I’ve used this with students in 2nd-4th grade and it’s been a hit with all! All the students can learn the structure easily, which leads to using the handouts or creating are own super fun and easy! This is the resource I didn’t know I needed and I love it! Also love the differentiated handouts to go along!

  58. Esther C. –

    This is so helpful to treat narratives! My students need assistance summarizing stories.

  59. Denise W. –

    Not only do I love this product, but so do my parents when I show them the visuals! This makes carryover of skills so much easier to achieve at home!

  60. Venus S. –

    Thank you for creating another fantastic resource!

  61. Kim K. –

    I love all of the different visuals for this, and the leveled stories to go along with it. I’ve used the visuals with Elephant and Piggie books with great success as well!

  62. Kathleen H. –

    I absolutely love everything by Speechy Musings! This is so helpful for helping students form a simple narrative summary.

  63. Language Encounters –

    This is such an engaging and thorough resource for a wide range of students

  64. Miranda B. –

    This will be another resource for me to address summarizing with my students and narrative elements. Thank you!

  65. Tara M. –

    I love how it breaks down building a narrative! My students have loved using it and have taken well to it.

  66. Tiffany H. –

    Easy to use resource with great visuals! Can be used over and over for carryover of skills.

  67. Jennifer J. –

    This has been a great resource for my kids who struggle with story retell and paraphrasing. The graphics are engaging and the kids have had fun with this!

  68. Gina C. –

    This resource was very engaging and my students were very pleased and so was I!

  69. Rebecca Ansen –

    This is a fabulous resource for scaffolding and teaching summarizing/narrative skills. My students enjoyed the engaging stories and visuals. I enjoyed saving a ton of prep time!

  70. Allison G. –

    My student has done so well with the different organizers provided in this. It has been extremely helpful in targeting goals related to summarizing and identifying story elements.

  71. Abigail P. –

    Great visuals, easy to follow, great for home carryover

  72. Elissa Kaufman –

    Great resource for teaching summarizing. Used with many student on my caseload. Thank you!

  73. Steph’s Speech Store –

    My students loved using this resource! It’s a great way to work on summarizing stories

  74. Bianca A. –

    My students loved the visuals and I personally loved the examples, I thought they were relatable and engaging. Thanks so much!

  75. The Rooted Ripple – Multilingual Resources –

    I love using all of your resources with my MLLs. The visuals are simple and easy to remember. Thank you!

  76. Julia D. –

    So many of the kids struggle with this, especially with finding the appropriate details. Sometimes, it is so hard to teach…!

  77. Whitney D. –

    Great resources for summarizing. Visuals and options for visuals are excellent.

  78. Angela C. –

    I love this resource and the visuals that go along with it! It is hard to go wrong with any purchase from Speechy Musings!

  79. Kim R. –

    I love ALL things from Speechy Musings! Such a great resource!

  80. Jen J. –

    I love this resource and is my go-to resource to work on summarizing. I love the graphic organizers.

  81. Laura V. –

    I laminated the teaching pages and visuals and actually printed a couple sets in color to put in those sturdy erasable plastic sleeves. This resource is so thorough….assessment and data sheets, various levels that I can use even within the same age group. Really like how complete and flexible this resource is for my caseload.

  82. Lori B. –

    An engaging way to teach story retelling. Visuals are fantastic.

  83. Janine B. –

    Nice resource! Relevant and appropriate for my students!

  84. Anna Y. –

    This resource was fantastic for introducing summarizing for my older elementary students! The resource is wonderfully scaffolded so the concepts are easy to teach and reteach from session to session. Would highly recommend!

  85. Valerie W. –

    A great easy to use leveled resource for working on a strategy I use often (Somebody Wanted But So Then). Visuals are great and appropriate for older students. The stories were also easy to put up on my ViewSonic Board and digitally highlight and color code the various story elements.

  86. Melinda F. –

    My students stay engaged with these stories and activities. The way it is designed really helps my students see how easy it is to summarize.

  87. Emily S. –

    This is such a great resource for language therapy!!! It’s hard to find to find the right structure for narrative language

  88. SpeakEazySLP –

    Perfect visuals! I love how colorful, yet simple they are. I love the predictable format for summaring stories. This has helped my students tremendously.

  89. Sheera L. –

    This is AMAZING. You provided an in-depth resource that I use daily.

  90. Angela G. –

    As always, another great product by Speechy Musings!

  91. Jessica F. –

    Another great resource! I like the easy to use learning visuals at the beginning of the unit.

  92. RINA L. –

    I will always purchase her products because she actually provides explicit, differentiated, clear instruction and relevant practice.

  93. Kaitlin A. –

    A lot of my high school students really struggle with summarizing, and this resource makes it super simple to address this skill.

  94. Speech Goober –

    I love the use of visual supports in this resource. An excellent purchase!

  95. Alyssa Jacobs –

    I have used this resource during my speech therapy sessions but also in the general education setting. It is a great resource!!

  96. Cienna B. –

    This resource is useful for targeting summarizing and narrative retell/comprehension. Visuals included are helpful.

  97. Jennifer B. –

    Thank you for creating this resource! It has made planning a breeze!

  98. Mary Anne R. –

    I work with students who have language and learning disabilities, and many of them struggle mightily with narrative language and especially with summarizing ANYTHING. These are very accessible to my students, so they are able to stay engaged for the duration of a language therapy session. AND they typically retain the instruction well from session to session!

  99. Matthew G. –

    This is what I have been looking for to help older students with summarizing.

  100. Cecilie Ovnerud –

    Very versatile images and great for teaching summarizing stories. EAL and my second language learners love the images equally. This resource is clearly depict the activity and a re easily recognisable. Thank you!

  101. Kelsey O. –

    I love the visual and the scripts for summarizing stories! It makes the “natural flow” of summarizing much easier with a consistent routine for the students to follow.

  102. TheSpeechSpace –

    I LOVE all of the options that come with this resource. I have already used it multiple times when working on story grammar and retell. It really helps to visualize what constitutes the beginning, middle, and end of a story and gives the student transitions to use that they can carry over to all story retells.

  103. Megan C. –

    I love this visual! Great for teaching summaries. It’s hard to come up with your own language for teaching this skill.

  104. Lauren T. –

    I’ve been using this all week with my students and they love it. I teach resource room and it keeps them on topic with their summaries!

  105. Emily R. –

    I love this product. Thank you for your hard work

  106. Lauren R. –

    I love Speechy Musings resources and this is no different. I love the visuals. Thank you!

  107. Karen F. –

    I am always confident when purchasing one of your products because I know that you have put a lot of thought and research for each resource. My students have responded very well to these visuals. They like it because it “makes sense” to them!

  108. Rebecca W. –

    I love the visuals that go with this resource. The stories are great, and easy to pull out anytime. This will be something I use a lot.

  109. Nikki O. –

    These short stories were perfect for tracking my small groups’ knowledge on summarizing stories.

  110. Jennifer J. –

    This resource is awesome. The visuals and graphics are appropriate for older students. I like the leveled stories and graphic organizers.

  111. Elsie J. –

    Amazing resource! The visuals have helped my students understand and recall the different parts of a story. This is an exceptional resource and one that I will continuously use.

  112. Lauri P. –

    I am a big fan of many of your products! I like how this helps kids focus on main details and putting them together using conjunctions. All skills I work on often and need new ways to practice them!

  113. B’s Speech Talk –

    Easy and great activity to use right before break!

  114. Leslie Morris –

    Great resource- love all my Speechy Musings products and use them all the time!

  115. Lana M. –

    Great resource to target summarizing, which is an important skill for students who like to ramble without getting to the point of their stories.

  116. Julie Ane L W. –

    The teaching pages were helpful for me and the kids liked the graphic organizers and visuals.

  117. josephine U. –

    Thank you! My students found this to be a beneficial tool for review.

  118. Speech T. –

    Very engaging, thank you for creating and sharing!

  119. Speechie Bee The SLP –

    Love using the graphics to support sequencing. There are a lot of variety of graphics (as well as coloured and black and white).

  120. Kristin C. –

    LOVE this resource! Super helpful for direct instruction, practicing, generalization and homework! Love that it includes an informal assessment to help gather baseline!

  121. littlespeechthings –

    I use this summarizing activity for all my students targeting reading comprehension skills. It’s so helpful!

  122. SHAUNA B. –

    Simple targeted visuals that support the developement of oral narrative skills.

  123. Penny M. –

    The graphics in this resource were engaging and helpful. It has helped my students to better grasp story concepts.

  124. Atindi P. –

    This is a great resource for working on summarizing. It is also engaging for the several students who have used it.

  125. Joann L. –

    This is a great resource for really breaking down the concept of summarizing with my students. I appreciate the visuals and the different levels for stories.

  126. Emily M. –

    I have so many students working on story grammar, retell, and summarizing this year, and this resource is perfect for addressing those needs in combo with some of your other great resources.

  127. Kharyl B. –

    One of my most used resources. I like how I can use this framework with the stories included and stories they are using in class.

  128. Monica Blair R. –

    This is one of my most-used resources for language disordered kids. The included stories are great for getting them started, and the visuals can be used for other stories/books.

  129. Sherly K. –

    This is an amazing resource to use when working on narrative skills. I love the graphics and the activities keep my students engaged. Thank you for creating it!

  130. Julie W. –

    I love everything from Speech Musings! I love the font; materials are accessible to the eyes! The content was great! I used it with my Writing Explosion lessons!

  131. Anastasia Lucich –

    Very engaging products for my students. The format makes it easier for students to break down story telling into an organized fashion.

  132. The Speech Chambers –

    This a a great resource for my middle schoolers, helping them expand their utterance and work on comprehension

  133. Nikole S. –

    I love how this resource is organized. The visuals and stories and very engaging.

  134. SLPAideen –

    I’ve loved using this resource during small SLP groups. I’ve been able to use it with students from a variety of grade levels.

  135. Ellie Phillips –

    Amazing resource that can be used in conjunction with Story Grammar Marker. I have used this in both push in and pull out sessions.

  136. kasey G. –

    I love this! Just what I needed, this visuals are fun!

  137. Lee L. –

    Great easy to use resource! I found this to be a well organized resource.

  138. Becky A. –

    I love the graphic and visuals. This resource makes it easier for my students to break down story telling into an organized fashion.

  139. Sunny Day Speech Academy –

    I have lots of students working on narrative and this has been super helpfuL!

  140. Tammy S. –

    Great resource that I used with my students in speech therapy. Thank you so much!

  141. A H. –

    This creates a great structure and visuals for students and TAs/EAs to scaffold story retell and summarizing.

  142. WEI JUEN L. –

    structured prompts to support summarising long passages

  143. Tania S. –

    I absolutely love this resource. I use with many resources for retelling and for home practice. Visuals and structure is excellent.

  144. Jessica P. –

    Fabulous resource! Each stage of summarizing is clearly explained and gives lots of practice opportunities. I also love the variety of visuals depending on student needs and preferences.

  145. Jeannine E. –

    This is an extremely helpful resource. It is differentiated and has really helped my students.

  146. Shazil Z. –

    This is an excellent resource for helping kids learn to summarise stories.

  147. Taylor R. –

    Great resource

  148. Susan W. –

    Loved the different kinds of visuals. It makes the story telling process less daunting and more organized for students. Great resource.

  149. Katerina K. –

    I loved the visuals and the short stories included in this resource! They’re perfect for use during sessions and add a rich, engaging element to narrative interventions. This resource is incredibly helpful for enhancing storytelling and comprehension skills. Highly recommended for anyone working on narrative development!

  150. Krista K. –

    This resource makes it easy to target summarizing. It gives you clear steps to follow and a lot of worksheets/stories to use.

  151. Mister R Speech Room –

    I love targeting literacy and this resource was such a game changer for my caseload and me. We loved how bright and colorful it was. Thank you!

  152. Cassidy G. –

    This is my favorite summarizing strategy to use and I really appreciate having the visuals to go along with it!

  153. Stacey D. –

    Love this for working on summarizing with my students!

  154. Kathleen N. –

    The best most comprehensive amazing resource for teaching and working on Somebody Wanted But So Then!

  155. Miranda B. –

    I love this resource! Students were very engaged with the material.

  156. Tammy M. –

    An excellent resource for targeting literacy and working on narrative development. I love the variety and opportunities for practice.

  157. weslie K. –

    Perfect for my middle school students with ASD! I was able to adapt it to meet the students individual needs. It aligns directly with their IEP goals and accommodations.

  158. Heretti I. –

    Strong recommend this resource. Easy to use and great visuals.

  159. Spazzy Speech –

    this is a great product- it has assessment pages and teaching pages and practice pages and is really well done, love it!

  160. Carmen Higueros –

    This resource was very helpful when i was teaching my students about story elements.

  161. Anna Katrina D. –

    This resource was extremely beneficial. It helped me so much.

  162. That Speech Character –

    I love this resource! The visuals are fantastic and they really simply the retelling process. We have been able to apply the visuals in this resource to other sequencing tasks and I have seen fantastic growth in their ability to retell the story.

  163. Courtney W. –

    My students have a lot of difficulty with summarizing. This was a great resource to work on that skill.

  164. Kristian P. –

    I love using this resource to help students learn how to write a summary for a short story. As with all of the Speechy Musings resources, this one has highly engaging stories, great visuals, and several different levels for students to practice using the SWBST strategy.

  165. Sharon Rodrigues –

    I purchased this for my students who have a lot of difficulty with summarising. Absolutely fab resource!!!

  166. Jennifer R. –

    This visual has been really helpful with my students as they retell and understand the story structures.

  167. Jodie Peterson –

    I have loved all my products from Speechy Musings. This is a great resource to help teach summarizing.

  168. alaina C. –

    My students seemed to really grasp these concepts while using this resources. The visuals were great!

  169. Cara S. –

    Wonderful stories, great visuals; overall, a great product! I’m very happy with this purchase.

  170. Rylie A. –

    Includes so many visuals for students and teacher to refer too + passages to practice skills

  171. Holly G. –

    My students enjoyed this activity during teletherapy sessions! Great visuals.

  172. Kmin –

    Easy to use resource that can be printed right away. Thank you so much!

  173. Karen K. –

    Add this to your toolbox 🙂

    Love the SWBST structured format as well as the assessment tools. Another great EBP resource from my favorite TPT author!

  174. Ocean State Speech –

    Awesome resource!!

    Great product and can’t wait to use it again this year!!

  175. Tara S. –

    Amazing resource!

    Like everything Speechy Musings does, this resource is evidence-based, comes with visuals to help explain the concept, and tons of well crafted stories to work on summarizing. Amazing resource!

  176. Lisa D. –

    Highly structured Resource

    This is an incredible resource for teaching narrative retell to students. The varying visual supports are wonderful!

  177. Aimee Garibay –

    Great Resource

    Worked really well with my middle school speech groups.

  178. Claire C. –

    great strategy

    Simple and effective way of teaching summarizing to older students

  179. Emily Straw –

    Great for my Middle Schoolers

    I have loved using this for my students who have a hard time knowing what is needed in a summary

  180. Casey D. –

    Awesome resource

    This is exactly what I needed for my student. I wasn’t sure where to start or even how to teach the concept of summarizing. This resource breaks everything down into steps and ensures that the student understands before moving to more advanced concepts. Thank you!

  181. Mindy Stenger –

    Such a great resource!

    The visuals and various levels of support are an A+! Truly everything you need if you’re looking to start SWBST in your speech room!

  182. Andrew J. –

    Great resource, worksheets, anchor charts and readings to practice

    What a great anchor chart visual that the students love. Worksheets and graphic organizers help to organize student thinking in written and oral form!

  183. Kathryn McWilliams –

    Deserves 6 stars!

    This is a very comprehensive and useful tool for students working on narratives. It has wonderful visuals, graphic organizers, and stories for practice. Highly recommend!

  184. Sydney S. –

    Visuals and differentiated practice FTW!

    This is an AMAZING resource. It has everything I need to teach and provide differentiated practice for a variety of student academic levels.

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