Sequence and Order of Events of Stories Worksheets

Order of Events and Sequence Worksheets

These worksheets will mess with your head a bit. We provide you a story and then some bits of the story that you need to put back in the order they were presented to you with. Please note that the answer keys for everything can be found below.

Cameron the Relay Machine - Understanding Story Sequence
Cameron is a star swimmer. See if you can piece his story together in proper chronological order. Cameron has a great time in the pool, but his story is all out of whack. See if you can help him piece it together.

Mr. Matters and His Morning Exercises
This worksheets practices keep track of a reading sequence. Mr. Matters gets some bad news from the doctor, it's time for a lifestyle change. Mr. Matters visit the doctor when he doesn't feel good. The doctor tells him to change the way he lives. Guess what? He does turn it around.

Which Way Did It Happen?: The Mean Girl
The young girl that is just not happy or nice to anyone. Why is the daughter of two faithful and trustworthy parents so uncooperative? I just don't get it, I guess?

Life Before Humans Roamed the Earth
A fictional story that tells a tall tale about animals working together to overcome adversity. This is a fictitious passage that tells the tale of pre-human animals that work together to survive a brutal winter season.

The Bronx Zoo Trip
A field trip to the zoo... What could be better? This is a fairly uneventful trip. A fun trip to the zoo in the form of a class field trip. Pay attention to choice of events.

Kayla Becomes a Superstar
Kayla's wish comes true and she gets a chance to rock out! Kayla wishes upon a shooting star and hopes for the chance to become a singing rock star. She might just get her wish.

Mayor Nate's Replacement
The mayor gets to choose his replacement as he leaves office. There is tight competition. Mayor Nate has the privilege and the nightmare of choosing his successor for a difficult and time consuming job. See how he makes out.

A Genie Named Janie
Our first of the three wishes is for you to put the the story in proper chronological order. Janie the Genie gives John three wished. He wished his sister gone and much more.

Battle of the Kid Bands
Time to go hear our favorite band play. Or is it see them play? The author gets to go to their first concert. That is a great time in anyone's life.

Coach's Son and the Big At Bat...
All year the coach's son felt left out. Now was his time to shine. See if he pulled it off. The boy's father becomes his baseball coach. For the good of the team his dad plays other athletes more. Now is his big chance to make something of himself.

The Sad Rainbow
We follow the journal of a rainbow. This is a fun one for you. A rainbow sad, really? What has the world come to? The next thing your going to tell me is that there is no Santa? This is a bit quicker than the others.

I Saw Aliens From My Trampoline!
This is a funny mixed up story for you. See if you can make sense of it. Imagine you are just playing around on your trampoline when you see what you think is a UFO. This is a two pager, plus the question sheet.

When Lightening Strikes!
the weather swings out of control very quickly and one family finds themselves wondering if they'll see tomorrow. A huge storm creeps up on one family and they do everything they can do to survive and see tomorrow. This is a quick one.

Baseball's Practical Jokers
This is a bit of fun for you. aseball players pull themselves together for a few laughs. We then ask you how the entire scenario went down.

Dirt Bike Danger!
A really bad day at the dirt bike track as a racer gets injured. Poor Todd Mary! He eats the wall during a big dirt bike race. See if you can recapture the story and the events that took place.

Order of Events Answer Keys

How to Sequence Events of What You Read

Alice was drowning in the pond. Ashley fought with the alligator to save Alice. It was a beautiful day.

Wait! Where did the alligator come from? It seems bizarre, right?

Our brains have become accustomed to seeing and reading things in a sequence. What must come first, what must be last, is known to the brain because the sense of pattern and order has been integrated into our daily routine from an early age. Therefore, teaching students how to identify the sequence of events in reading can be an effective comprehension strategy.

What Is Sequencing of Events?

In reading, sequencing refers to identifying a story's order of events – beginning, middle, and end – to comprehend the story better. Sequencing is also taught as a reading strategy so that students can retell the events.

In stories, the events may unfold in order. However, the wordplay can get tricky, confusing students to link one event with the other. There are still a few practical tips and tricks that can help students identify the sequence of events in a story.

How to Teach this Skill to Students?

Reading isn't a one-step process where you get a text and read it through. Reading can be divided into at least three parts, and that's the most effective way of comprehending a text. Break down the reading process into pre-reading, while reading, and post-reading.

Pre-Reading: Instead of jumping right into the text, allow your students to make hunches about the story by reading the title. Who might be the main character of the story? What might the events revolve around? What could be the author's purpose? Let students record their answers to go back to them later.

While-Reading: While students are reading, they can work on identifying the sequence of events individually and collectively.

For individual practice, introduce your students to sequential transition words.

Sequential transition words are the words that depict which section of the story (beginning, middle, or end) the reader is at. These words can also assist students in identifying the order of multiple events in the body of a story. Sequential transition words are also a part of non-fiction writing.

Here's a list of some typical sequential transition words used in writing to hint at a sequence:

Beginning	Middle	End
Once upon a time	Then	At the end
Initially	Later	At last
To begin with	After	Finally
A long time ago	Meanwhile/td>	Ultimately
Firstly	Subsequently	To sum it up

For a collaborative practice, you can either ask students to read aloud or ask students to read to a specific paragraph. Once they're at that point, you can ask questions for clarity, such as what has happened so far? What happened first? What happened next? Why do you think this happened first? What do you think will happen next? Allow students to use the context clues and inferences in depicting what's going to happen.

Post-Reading: When students are done reading, have a verbal conversation with them to make sense of the story from beginning to end. Once done with that, hand them a graphic organizer. The graphic organizer could be based on the chronological order of events or present the story in the form of a drawing.

The idea is to let students stretch their brain muscles and extract whatever information they had stored there while reading. Students will then sequence the events and organize the information, which would reiterate the story they've read.

Why Is Teaching Sequencing of Events Important?

Students might often get lost in the world of words, especially if they can grasp the beginning and the end. Therefore, teaching how to sequence what they've read is crucial for students.

- Organize Information: By learning to sequence, students will have the tools to organize the information they've extracted from the text. They’ll have a clear beginning, middle, and end of the story and will be able to further classify the events as part of one of the sections.

- Write Clearly: Whatever reading strategy you teach a kid would majorly impact their writing. If students understand how to sequence events and categorize information, they'll be able to write with more clarity. They'd know which two parts might make sense together and which parts might confuse their reader.

- Understand Processes: Whether it's a science experiment or solving a math equation, sequencing is an essential strategy in all disciplines. Students will be able to understand processes taught in science or the process of solving an equation in math if they know how missing a single step might result in chaos on paper.

Examples

In literature, the story of Goldilocks is an excellent example of how the sequence of events in a story can bring clarity.

The story starts with "Once upon a time," making it a clear beginning. We read as a girl gets lost in the woods and soon comes up to a house. Since the house is unlocked, she enters without permission. Then she tastes three bowls of porridge to find the one most suitable to her taste. She then sleeps on the bed one by one and finds the one most comfortable for her.

You can use the story of Goldilocks in your class as one of the sequence of events examples to introduce the topic.

Conclusion

Sequencing is a subconscious act that we practice every day. Whether it's a mundane task like getting ready or a special event like cooking a new recipe, sequencing is a part of it. It allows us to stay organized and evaluate where we stand in the process.

Students also have this same sense of order and sequence in their subconscious minds. Students must learn how to achieve that same clarity of order and sequence in reading to become critical readers and exceptional writers.

Practicing sequencing of events with the help of transition words and graphic organizers can aid students in reading with a better comprehension of the text. Read aloud in class, and ask questions in the beginning, middle, and end for more clarity. Make students consciously look for clues in the text to identify the order, and soon it'll become second nature to them. Happy reading!

Sequence Related Teacher Resources

These are detailed themed resources.