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Then, explain that authors don't tell you about a character's traits, but they show you by the character's actions, conversations, or thoughts. Make sure students understand that traits are not descriptions of the character (long hair, green eyes) but represent their personality.
- Why Is Teaching Character Traits Important?
- Define What Are Character Traits
- Explain Strategies For Identifying Character Traits
- Build Their Vocabulary
- Practice Identifying Traits Using Fables Or Read Alouds
- Give Opportunities to Apply Their Understanding
As students begin to read more complex stories, character analysis helps the reader have a deeper understanding of the story. It requires higher-order thinking skills since the reader often has to make inferences. In the upper grades, students explain how the story events changed the character. Well, before they can do that, students need to master...
Everyone has character traits. They make up our personality. Some of them are good character traits like honesty, creativity, or being friendly. Others are bad character traits such as being grumpy, rude, or impatient. You can’t see these traits on the outside. However, you can figure them out by what a person says or does. Also, it is important to...
There are four ways students can figure out a character’s traits. Explain the acronym FAST. F stands for FEELINGS. Often authors let us know how the character is feeling or their mood. A stands for ACTIONS. The way the character behaves. How they react to situations. S is for SAID. Words spoken and unspoken are powerful clues. T stands for THOUGHTS...
Students often fall back on common words such as “nice” or “sad”. The challenge is to expand their vocabulary beyond the first word that pops into their head. More specific vocabulary means deeper understanding and comprehension. One method is to brainstorm synonyms for ordinary words such as nice. Together you could create lists of character trait...
A natural way to launch a discussion about character traits is through fables such as The Tortoise and The Hare. Each character had a completely different attitude towards life as well as the race itself. Another way to embed a conversation is after your read-aloud time. So many great books lend themselves to this topic. I wrote this post about my ...
Once you have provided guided practice through read-aloud books or your weekly basal story, it is time for your students to try it on their own. It is important that the student explains HOW they figured out the trait. What evidence supports your answer?
When teaching character in Kindergarten, your focus will be strictly on what a character is. You will want the students to look for WHO is carrying out the actions in the story. Students will need explicit examples of characters, allowing them to understand that characters can be found in many forms, not just as people.
- Focus on Character Traits Vocabulary. Most kids know common character traits like kind, friendly, and honest, but many lack the vocabulary for more complex traits like timid, loyal, generous, or even malicious, gullible, or intimidating!
- Teach Outside Vs Inside Traits. Many students confuse physical traits with personality traits. We identify physical traits by using our eyes and describing how the character looks on the outside but we determine personality traits by noticing the character’s thoughts, feelings, words, and actions over time.
- Explain Emotions Vs Character Traits. If a character feels sad in a story, that doesn’t necessarily mean the character has a gloomy or hopeless personality.
- Discuss Character Changes with Sentence Stems. Noticing how characters change over time takes repeated practice and lots of discussion. Students must learn to use the text evidence to determine both the change and why it happened.
Feb 25, 2016 · Track A Character’s Progress. Once your students have become masters at examining character traits, the next step is to get them to track a character’s progress throughout a story. This is especially useful in chapter books, but if you’re dealing with a particularly young group, the right picture book could also suffice.
Aug 12, 2024 · Why Teaching Character Traits Matters: Teaching character traits goes beyond literature—it taps into empathy, critical thinking, and a might even build an appreciation for storytelling. By helping students identify and analyze traits, we equip them with valuable skills to navigate both fiction and real-life relationships. So, there you have it!
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1. Define Character Traits. First, we define character traits and talk about what is and isn’t a character trait. One of the things I use is this anchor chart to guide our discussions about a character’s outward appearance vs. his/her inner character. Then we brainstorm a list of character traits on a separate anchor chart as a class.
