
Teacher introduces the character traits for the lesson. I tell a story that includes all the character traits including repetition, child friendly definitions in context of the story, and a child friendly story to encourage high interest.

We infer the character trait after reading the page.

Teacher models inferring the character trait using a read-aloud.

Students match the same character traits that were modeled in the story and in the read-aloud to their own story. This allows for repetition of the vocabulary words or character traits.

This is an example of a student using a sticky note to track the thinking.
I pair The New Boy (read aloud) with Panda’s Surprise. I also pair Koala Lou (Mem Fox) with reading a-z’s Animal Olympics.


Character Trait: rude
Text Evidence: stuck out his tongue
So now I know (infer): Since Milton stuck out his tongue, and my mom told me that sticking your tongue out at another person is rude behavior, I can infer that Milton is rude.
I give all the kids sticky notes with the character traits written on them (see above). The child leaves tracks of his/her thinking on a page (see above).
Filed under: writing | Tagged: Animal Olympics, Character Traits, Comprehension, Debra Renner Smith, Guided Reading the Four Blocks Way, infer, inference, inferring, Koala Lou, leave tracks of my thinking, Panda's Surprise, read aloud, reading a-z, shared reading, The New Boy, tracks of thinking | Leave a Comment »