Character Traits

We had our first reading skill on Friday, Character Traits.

We start most of our lessons with our learning targets. We state the goal, the why, and how students will know they are successful.

Learning Target: I can determine characters traits so I can have a deeper understanding when I read. I am successful when I can create a character trait t-shirt, pick a trait, illustrate an example, and use at least one synonym.

This is our starting lesson on character traits. We want students to know what is a character trait. In a few weeks, using the reading stratety, making inferences, we will develop determing character traits for deeper understanding (comprehension) skills in more depth.

To develop our understanding about character traits, we read Ms. Leom's favorite book, Tacky the Penguin. The theme of the book is "Tacky is an odd bird, but a nice bird to have around." Teaching theme can be tough for fourth grade. We use every opportunity we can to practice theme. Theme is the author's message, or the heart of the story.

Tacky is a great story to teach character traits! The students sit on the floor, and Ms. Leom models, reading the book with well practiced expression, voices, and pausing. Next, we define character traits. The definition is written on the board.

We can demonstrate how in picture books, authors tell you the characters' traits. There is Tacky. The author tells us, "Tacky is an odd bird." There are his companions named Goodly, Lovely, Neatly, Angel, and Perfect. The friends' names tell the reader their character traits. There are the rough and tough hunters that come to their home of nice icy land. Again the author tells us the character traits.

Picture books often make it easy. The author tells you the characters' traits. In chapter books, writers often do not tell you the character traits. A reader needs to look at what characters say, do, and think to determine the character traits. In the book, Tacky the Penguin, we can also look at what the characters say, do, and think to determine more character traits. This is where we achieve "deeper understanding" that we talked about in the beginning of the lesson for our learning goal.

A side lesson about synonyms also applies. Synonyms are words that mean the same, but are different. Tacky is an odd bird. Students are able to say he is bizare, disorganized. This is an important skills. Sometimes "great minds think alike", and come up with similar ideas. Other times, we don't know what words mean. The author uses the word, companion to describe Tacky's friends. We can comprehend that word by using a synonym.

You will see the white boards for this class discussion for Ms. Leom and Mr. Greninger's homeroom. The discussion of details the author use, "rough and tough hunters" and synonyms are part of both lessons, but the exact examples are generated from the students and individual class discussions, so they do not look exactly the same.

Ms. Leom's homeroom

Mr. Greninger's homeroom

After our class discussion and learning, students were asked to work with the person who sits next to them and read through examples of character traits. The traits are in the center of their Home Folders. 

Students were asked to choose two or three character traits that they wanted to illustrate. Students signed up for their trait then sat on the carpet.

Ms. Leom posted the directions to our activity and modeled each step, posting examples on the board. You might notice there are slight variations in the directions for both classes. Again, the learning is developed IN class, WITH the students. Our learning reflects the students, their contributions, and questions.

Ms. Leom's Homeroom

Mr. Greninger's Homeroom

As students started, Ms. Leom walked around the room and monitored student progress.

As students were being successful, Ms. Leom worked with students from yesterday's lesson. There were students who needed help with their Types of Sentences. Ms. Leom retaught the details that were missed and helped students "polish" their learning. This reteaching lesson was often less than one or two minutes.

Ms. Leom continued to monitor the class, giving feedback, encouragement, support, and redirection as needed on their character traits t-shirt project. 

On Monday, the Character Traits T-shirts will be posted on the lockers. Students will check out all the character trait t-shirts, and we will review our learning goals. 

The lesson is still in progress. We will return to character traits throughout the school year, adding to our understanding. You can see our lessons are very carefully thought out and layered with our goals and skills. We are preparing students for reading and comprehending complex texts. We start by making sure students have a basic understanding. Our learning is clear and direct. We will build on this learning. In our reading flex groups, students may have further instruction on their specific character traits needs.