As your child becomes a confident reader, ask her to read a story to you. Choose a book with a definite beginning, middle and end, and that she will be able to read successfully without any intervention or help from you. After your child has finished the story, ask her to recall what happened in the story. If she has trouble recalling, give her a hint or tell her the first event in the story and allow her to tell you the rest.
If you are working with a classroom full of children who have all read the same story, try planning a fun game show-style activity to help children recall what they have read. Before class begins, create a list of questions about the book you have all read. Ask questions about characters, setting and plot. When the class arrives for the day, split them into two teams and give each team a bell or whistle. Ask the question, and the first team to sound their bell or whistle will be given the chance to answer first. Allow the children on each team to work together to come up with an answer to each question.
Before children arrive for the day, write a short summary of the book you have all been reading. Make three copies of the summary and divide it into sentences. Write each sentence of the summary on a short strip of cardboard. Repeat this process three times, so that you have three separate stacks of the summary paragraph broken into sentences. As children arrive for the day, divide the class into three equal groups. Give each child in the group one sentence strip. Have the children work together and place the sentences in the correct order to create the summary in the correct order. Provide a small prize such as a bookmark to the team that completes the task correctly first.
Before students arrive for the day, create index cards with a main idea, setting or a character name on each. Pass them out to the students as they arrive for the day, and allow them the chance to recall these characters or settings from the book. Play a simple charades-type game and allow each student the chance to act out the information on his card and give the rest of the students points for guessing correctly.