Reading

We are in our unit - Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons. This is a time and place for amazingly deep first grade conversations around story elements but especially characters! Students are going beyond what is explicitly in the text and draw conclusions about a character based on what they say, how they act, etc.

Essential Questions:

How do readers keep track of the events in a story?
How do partners share their reading adventures?
How do readers study the characters in books?
What important lessons can I learn from the character and their experiences?
How do readers share their opinions about books?

This past week we've been focusing on these skills:

Readers keep track of events in a story and use them to make predictions and retell key details

Readers pay attention to characters when reading

Readers learn important lessons from the books they read 

Readers grow opinions about the books they read and share them

You'll notice that we are incorporating some of what we are learning about OPINIONS from our writing reviews unit we are also currently working in. This is a fun way for the kids to make a cross-curricular connection!

We are diving into characters this week especially. Using various texts as a whole group and in partners and small groups we are working on some fun ways for students to really get into the character's shoes. Students will introduce characters to each other, re-read to sound like a character, act out a character from a part of their book. 

We will also discuss what lessons characters learn throughout this unit.