🎓 Method

After reading aloud comes retelling — the story you heard, in your own sentences

The question English teachers keep asking in 2026 is not whether to block AI but whether learners actually communicate better. Retelling is the simplest way to answer it. Children learning their first language grow the same way: they hear a story and tell it back to their family. There are three steps. First, listen to a short story several times and read it aloud until the sounds feel familiar. Next, look only at the pictures and recall what happened, in order. Finally, close the text and retell it in your own words for one minute. Different words are fine — if the meaning gets across, it worked. At Huston, read-aloud homework builds the sounds, and in 1:1 lessons the teacher guides the retelling with questions. Mistakes are not pointed out; the teacher simply says the sentence back correctly.