Q:

Strategies to read longer stories to a 3 years old

My daughter is 3 years and about 2 months old and a total books' child. She enjoys being read to very much. Recently I've started reading The Robber Hotzenplotz to her (a german children's book from the 1960s, for what it's worth). It has 100+ pages, is split to chapters and has very few pictures. 
She enjoys to book being read to her very much and downright demands it, but I have the feeling that it's quite hard for her to follow the storyline, yet. We are reading some chapters every evening and before reading I do a short recap of the story so far. 
Are there other ways I can facilitate to understanding of the story to her? I think that it can be beneficial to her if she learned to follow a longer story, but I do not want to enforce anything. 

A:

Tell the story instead of reading it.
If you know the story or are able to read ahead and tell it using the same wording you use in normal interaction she might be better able to follow. With a little practice telling a story is even smoother than reading; you never miss-read a word, you find the lesson of the day works its way in almost naturally, and questions or interruptions don't break your flow as much. 
The advanced version re-uses similar-to-the-story things throughout the day. "Let's go to the woods like Hansel and Gretel did. Do you think we'll find a witch? Let's take some extra pebbles in case we get lost.", "What big teeth you have, do you think you can eat this whole sandwich?"

