After your students learn about characters and their traits, it’s important for them to think about how the characters feel about the events that are happening in the story. They also need to understand that the narrator or character who is telling the story is explaining things from his or her point of view. However, another character might feel differently. Here are some tips for teaching your students about point of view.
Tips for Teaching Your Students About Point of View
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The first thing we need to do is to break down the standard at the different grade levels. It is really helpful to know what your students are expected to do in the grade level before yours and the grade level after yours. This allows you to differentiate your lessons and meet the needs of all your students.
First Grade
Important Skills to Teach:
- What characters are
- How to know who is telling a story
I Can Statements:
- I can identify which character is telling a story when it uses words like “I” or “me”.
- I can identify when an outside narrator is telling a story if it uses words like “he” or “she”.
Download a week of 1st grade lesson plans to teach this standard.
Download a digital slideshow to assign for distance learning or as a center activity.
Second Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.6 – Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.
Important Skills to Teach:
- What characters are
- How to identify which character is talking
I Can Statements:
- I can explain the different points of view of characters in a story.
- I can use different voices for each character when I read.
Download a week of 2nd grade lesson plans to teach this standard.
Download a digital slideshow to assign for distance learning or as a center activity.
Third Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.6 – Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.
Important Skills to Teach:
- How to identify the point of view of the story – whether it’s told by a narrator outside the story or a character in the story
- How to identify their own point of view
I Can Statements:
- I can explain the point of view of the narrator or the characters in a story.
- I can tell whether my point of view is the same as or different from the person telling the story.
Download a week of 3rd grade lesson plans to teach this standard.
Download a digital slideshow to assign for distance learning or as a center activity.
Fourth Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.6 – Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.
Important Skills to Teach:
- The difference between first-person and third-person point of view
- What it means to compare and contrast
I Can Statements:
- I can explain the difference between first-person and third-person narration.
- I can compare and contrast the point of view of two different stories.
Download a week of 4th grade lesson plans to teach this standard.
Download a digital slideshow to assign for distance learning or as a center activity.
Fifth Grade
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6 – Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.
Important Skills to Teach
- The difference between first-person and third-person point of view
- How to identify the important events in a story
I Can Statements:
- I can identify the narrator’s or speaker’s point of view.
- I can explain how the point of view of the story influences how the events are described.
Download a week of lesson plans to teach this standard.
Download a digital slideshow to assign for distance learning or as a center activity.
Suggested Books for Teaching Your Students About Point of View
It’s helpful to have books that are written from different points of view for this standard. Try to find one that is told in first-person point of view and one that is told in third-person point of view. This will allow your students to see the differences between them. Books that tell the same story from two different characters’ points of view are also fun to see how they explain the events differently and have different feelings about the same events. The “My Side of the Story” fairy tale books work well for this.
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Seriously, Cinderella is SO Annoying. . .
Tips for Teaching Your Students About Point of View
- Read with Voices The second grade standard requires the students to use different voices as they read the lines of the different characters. This is a great thing to practice at all grade levels, since paying attention to the way the characters say things helps them learn about the character’s point of view. Reader’s theaters are a fun way to practice this, and the students can compare and contrast how their characters felt about the events they acted out.
- Use a Venn diagram. Have your students use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast 1st person and 3rd person point of view. This will help them see how these two ways of telling a story are different, and they’ll be able to identify them more easily when they are reading a book.
- Integrate Writing. Challenge your students to write part of the book from another character’s point of view. This will make them think about how the events made that character feel, and it will help them understand that different characters have different points of view.
Other Helpful Resources
If you have students who are struggling with this standard, strategy groups and one-on-one conferences are a great way to differentiate and help all your students master it. These assessments will show you which students have mastered the standards and which students need extra practice.
1st Grade Common Core Literature Standard Assessments
1st Grade Common Core Informational Texts Standard Assessments
2nd Grade Common Core Literature Standard Assessments
2nd Grade Common Core Informational Texts Standard Assessments
3rd Grade Common Core Literature Standard Assessments
3rd Grade Common Core Informational Texts Standard Assessments
4th Grade Common Core Literature Standard Assessments
4th Grade Common Core Informational Texts Standard Assessments
5th Grade Common Core Literature Standard Assessments
5th Grade Common Core Informational Texts Standard Assessments
Get all the lesson plans you need to teach every Common Core Reading Standard for your grade level.
1st Grade Common Core Standards Bundle
2nd Grade Common Core Standards Bundle
3rd Grade Common Core Standards Bundle
4th Grade Common Core Standards Bundle
5th Grade Common Core Standards Bundle
For more tips on teaching the reading standards, join the Rock the Reading Workshop Facebook Group.
What Do You Think?
What are your best tips for teaching your students about point of view?
Let us know in the comments.
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