Grades 3–5 Reading Activities

Our lives are full of many different characters, and these characters often aren’t very different from the characters we read about in books. Real-life characters have feelings, beliefs, and traits, just like those in works of fiction and movies. Your child can probably recognize the traits, feelings, and motives of the characters she meets in books; now ask her to think in similar ways about the real people she knows. As you talk with her about fictional characters that interest her, encourage her to bring similar insights to the people she knows in the neighborhood, in your family, or at school.

Who are the people that your child finds interesting in the neighborhood? What traits and feelings has your child observed in your neighbors? What experiences with these neighbors does your child remember when she thinks about these people? Her ideas about these people can serve as the critical starting place for what will become a fully-developed story.

	Paper

	Pen or pencil or

	Computer

Ask your child to think of two neighbors she wants to include in a story. Get her started by first helping her choose the characters and then move on to writing character sketches. In choosing the characters, ask your child to think about someone in the neighborhood she particularly likes or is fascinated by. What specifically does she like about this person? Is there someone she is afraid of? Why? What are the qualities of this person that stand out and lead her to respond as she does?

Have your child write character sketches (descriptions) for each of these neighbors. How would your child describe these neighbors so that anyone listening would be able to picture them? She might start these sketches by making a list of the essential traits of each person. Then she will need to build rich descriptive paragraphs that clearly present these traits.

Next, to help your child begin her story and to get her thinking about developing a plot, you might talk about a situation in the neighborhood that many people are concerned about. Ask your child to imagine a story in which these two neighbors solve this particular problem together. Based on what you know about these people, how would each of them react to this situation? As she writes the story, help her develop the plot and show each character’s traits as he or she responds to events that happen. Also, have your child show how the two characters work together to resolve the neighborhood problem.

Talking to your child about character can help her think carefully about people, both fictional and real. Call attention to the words she uses to describe characters, encouraging her to go beyond “nice” to focus on more specific and revealing details. You might ask your child, “What are ten adjectives that describe this character?" or “Why does he do what he does? What are his motives?”

As a follow-up to the story about neighbors, your child might continue to create character sketches. As she begins to gain an understanding of character traits, have her create characters from her imagination.

 Grades 3–5 Reading Activities