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Find ideas and inspiration to create animal characters for your very own stories.

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Compare and Contrast: How to Use Books to Teach Children Comparative Thinking | Brightly

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Starting at a young age, we can nurture children's comparative thinking with books, ratcheting up the level of difficulty as they grow in age and developmental ability.

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Being able to think deeply about character traits for the characters in a short story or novel is an important part of understanding the author's deeper message. Lower-level texts often spell these out directly, describing a character as friendly or sly, to help the reader.

However, as students begin reading more challenging texts, they'll need to think more deeply about the characters and their character traits. Being able to accurately describe characters is a prerequisite skill that students must master before they'll be able to analyze how characters are influenced by the plot and their relationships with others.

Establishing a strong understanding of character traits is essential for success with later skills like analyzing character change.

Today I wanted to share some of my favorite resources and strategies for teaching students how to use text clues to identify character traits. I'll also share some great printables you can use to facilitate these lessons in your classroom.

Disclosure: I've included Amazon Affiliate links where applicable. These products won't cost you any extra, but the earnings from the use of these links help support the maintenance of this site.

Why teach character analysis?

Getting started teaching character traits

Identifying character traits is an important foundational skill. Whether this is your first year teaching reading or you're looking for some new ideas to incorporate into your classroom, my hope is you'll find some ideas and ready-to-use resources you can add to your lesson plans for this skill.

Before we dive into the lesson plan, here's some background information on how this skill fits into the larger picture of teaching reading.

What standards address character traits?

This skill is introduced in very different grade levels depending on what standards you use. This is a second grade standard in Texas, and students are expected to apply this skill to analyze character relationships by third grade, The Common Core standards introduce character analysis in third grade and expand upon it through the remaining elementary years.

Here are the Texas standards (TEKS) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS to aid with lesson plan documentation:

TEKS 2.8B Describe the main character's internal & external traits

CCSS RL.3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

CCSS RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text.

What reading comprehension skills do my students need to have before I dive into teaching character traits?

Unlike many higher-level reading comprehension skills, Identifying character traits doesn't require a ton of prerequisite lessons. Once students are able to recall the main elements of fiction and can tell about the main character, they're ready to begin the process of identifying character traits. In other words, the foundations of comprehension must be solid.

If you're worried about students' reading levels or you have a very diverse group of learners, the lesson below outlines a great way to begin teaching this skill because it doesn't even require students to use text for the initial lessons.

What books are good for introducing & modeling how to identify character traits?

There are so many great books to use with lessons on character analysis. While we tend to look at picture books as mentor texts, biographies are actually a great option for this skill. The story just needs a strong main character and/or supporting characters that your students can make inferences about.

Here are my 10 favorite books for teaching students to identify character traits:

Before Reading: Introducing Character Traits

One great way to do this is by modeling these differences using yourself or a student in your class. Have students take turns giving examples of physical attributes first. Then transition to discussing the traits of that person. When you finish, compare the two lists to help students internalize the differences between the two.

Here's a great example of an anchor chart you may want to consider using with your class as you begin this foundational work.
See more great examples of anchor charts to teach character traits.
Once you've done this as a group, you can even have students break off into groups and complete an example using themselves or another classmate.

The great thing about doing this first is that it doesn't require text. This means that your struggling readers get the change to understand the skill without using up all their mental energy on decoding.

You may also consider creating a list of character traits as a class or sharing and discussing one as a group. This can help students build vocabulary.

If you feel like your students might need additional practice before they identify these traits in text, you can work backward by assigning each student a trait and having them write about how someone with that trait might think, act, or speak to others. This can really help students tune into what clues the text might provide.

Transitioning to Text - Guided Practice

Once your students have a solid grasp on what character traits are, you're likely ready to transition them toward identifying the traits of characters in a short text.

At this point, I like to pick a picture book to use as a mentor text. My favorite for upper elementary is A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. A great alternative for younger students or those with shorter attention spans is No, David! from the same author.

As you read, have students pay attention to the main character's thoughts, words, actions, and feelings. Stop to discuss character traits they can infer along the way.

After you finish reading, use the free flipbooks to help your students document the traits they observed. Under each flap, they should provide evidence from the text that supports the trait they've identified.

Depending on the text you select, this can also be a great spot to begin the discussion of positive vs. negative character traits. You can even use the cut & paste character traits included to help your students sort traits into three categories - positive, negative, and neutral.

Independent Practice Options

Once students seem to have a solid grasp on this skill, there are many different ways you can incorporate this into independent practice.

Encouraging students to discuss character traits during their literature circles or guided reading is one great option. I've included a free graphic organizer that students can use to organize their thoughts and record text evidence for their book.

Here are a few ways you can offer some fun additional practice:

Use free online games to practice the skill & keep students engaged

Use task cards to have students practice identifying character traits

Have students create a Wordle for a character in a book they've read

Grab the free resources for teaching character traits

Now that you've read about how you can get students to think deeply about characters and their traits, I'm sure you're ready to tackle this in your classroom.

That's why I created a set of free resources for teaching this skill. In this free pack, you'll find:

Character traits list for reading journals

Character traits graphic organizers - internal vs. external, text evidence, comparing characters

Comparing characters graphic organizer

Character trait writing task - differentiated options available

Character trait sort - positive, negative, and neutral traits

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How to Teach Character Traits so All Students Can Master It

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It can be hard to figure out how to make reading comprehension skills - like character traits - approachable for all students without having to write 50 different lessons. Here are some suggestions & a free resource to help your students master these skills without sacrificing your sanity.

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In this fiction comprehension lesson plan geared toward first graders, young readers will become character detectives as they learn how to use illustrations and key details to describe fictional characters. Children will explore the terms "character," "traits," and "fiction" through the story The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas. Then, young fiction sleuths will bolster their reading and writing skills as they peruse a storybook of their choice, using what they have learned to complete their own character analysis.

Students will be able to describe fictional characters using key details and illustrations from books.

Invite your students to join you on rug or in usual read-aloud location in your classroom.

Hold up the copy of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas (or a similar picture book) and ask the class who the story is about. Answers might include: "The three wolves," "The pig," "The other animals," and "The mother wolf."

Explain that the book is about a group of characters. Define a character as a person or animal in a story or play. Sometimes a character might be an inanimate object that's alive, such as Chip the cup in Beauty and the Beast.

Tell the class that today they will become character detectives by reading texts carefully to learn about the characters in different stories.

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Character Detectives | Lesson Plan | Education.com | Lesson plan | Education.com

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In this fiction comprehension lesson plan geared toward first graders, young readers will become character detectives as they learn how to use illustrations and key details to describe fictional characters. Children will explore the terms "character," "traits," and "fiction" through the story The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas.

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CHARACTER ANALYSIS