Understanding Key Details in Stories
Understanding Key Details in Stories Objective: Students will be able to ask and answer questions to demonstrate their understanding of key details in a text.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize and identify key details in a story.
- Ask questions about a story using who, what, where, when, why, and how.
- Answer questions about a story to show understanding.
Materials Needed
- A short story or a chapter from a children’s book appropriate for 6-year-olds
- Paper and pencil
- Question cards with who, what, where, when, why, and how questions
Key Vocabulary
- Key Details
- Important pieces of information in a story that help us understand what is happening.
- Question
- A sentence we ask to get information or learn more about something.
- Answer
- Information or a response given when a question is asked.
Detailed Activities
Read and Discuss a Story
- Read a short story aloud to the student or have the student read it aloud.
- Pause at key points in the story to ask simple questions about what happened.
- Encourage the student to answer the questions using details from the story.
Question Card Game
- Show the student question cards one at a time (who, what, where, when, why, how).
- Have the student choose a card and ask a question related to the story you read.
- Help the student find the answer in the story and say it aloud.
- Repeat until the student has practiced all question types.
Draw and Write
- Ask the student to draw a picture of their favorite part of the story.
- Help the student write 1-2 sentences about the drawing, including key details.
- Review the sentences together to make sure they include important information from the story.
Parent & Instructor Notes
- This lesson focuses on helping your child understand important parts of a story by asking and answering questions.
- You do not need to be a reading expert; just encourage your child to think about who, what, where, when, why, and how during reading.
- Keep the reading sessions relaxed and fun to build your child’s confidence and interest in stories.
Assessment Questions
- Who is the main character in the story?
- What happened at the beginning of the story?
- Where does the story take place?
- Why did the character do something important?
- How did the story end?
- Can you tell me one detail that helps us understand the story better?
Extension Ideas
- Read another story and create your own question cards based on that story.
- Make a story map together, drawing pictures and writing words to show the setting, characters, and main events.
- Watch a short video story and ask similar questions to practice identifying key details in different formats.
Frequently Asked Questions
Try rephrasing the questions in simpler words or provide a hint by pointing to the part of the story where the answer is found.
Use engaging stories your child likes, keep activities short, and offer plenty of praise and encouragement.
You can read the story aloud while your child follows along or look at the pictures together and talk about the story.
Teacher’s Guide
Common Misconceptions:
- Children may focus on the pictures and miss details in the text.
- Students might answer questions based on memory or imagination rather than the story.
- Some children may answer questions with one word and need encouragement to provide more detail.
Scaffolding Ideas:
For Struggling Students:
- Use shorter stories with clear pictures.
- Limit questions to who and what before introducing where, when, why, and how.
- Provide sentence starters to help with answers (e.g., ‘The character is…’).
For Advanced Students:
- Ask why the character acted a certain way and what might happen next.
- Encourage them to find more than one detail for answers.
- Have them create their own questions about the story.
Pacing Recommendations:
- Spend about 10-15 minutes reading and discussing the story.
- Use 15 minutes for the question card game to practice asking and answering.
- Reserve 10-15 minutes for the drawing and writing activity to reinforce learning.
Standards
- 6.RL.2 — Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Printable Worksheet
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