Teaching Story Elements in First Grade

Teaching story elements in first grade is an important part of building strong reading comprehension skills. Students learn to identify and describe characters, settings, and major events using key details from a story. These skills help young readers better understand what they read as they become more confident readers. It is the third standard we focus on in 1st grade. Read my blog posts about ask and answer questions or retelling stories (our first two standards)!

When teaching story elements in first grade, I like to break the standard into smaller, manageable parts before bringing everything together.

In this post, I’m sharing some of my favorite read-alouds, simple classroom activities, and helpful resources for teaching characters, settings, and major events in first grade!

1. Introduce the Standard

I like to begin teaching story elements in first grade by introducing my anchor poster. We go over the vocabulary, with kid-friendly definitions, for the words characters, setting, and major events. We review that characters are the people, animals, or creatures in a story. Setting tells us where and when the story takes place and can change throughout the story. Major events are the important things that happen throughout the story.

We also practice asking questions like Who is in the story? Where does the story take place? What important things happened? At this point in the year, students are familiar with asking questions as we read and thinking about what is happening as they are reading or listening. Read my blog post about teaching first graders how to ask and answer questions.

I keep the poster displayed in our classroom throughout the unit so students can refer to it as we practice describing story elements.

⭐ This poster is part of my RL.1.3 Reading Comprehension Passages Pack if you’re in need!

2. Teaching Students to Describe Characters

Students are already familiar with identifying characters from our earlier lessons this year. Now, we’re diving deeper! We discuss character traits…what characters look like, how they act, how they feel, and what their actions tell us about them. We also look for how the character changes throughout the story. I encourage students to use details from the story to support their descriptions. This helps them develop a deeper understanding of the characters, their traits, and their roles in the story.

📔 Some of my favorite 1st grade books to use for describing characters:

• A Weekend with Wendell
• Julius, the Baby of the World
• Jabari Tries
• Peter’s Chair
• Henry’s Show and Tell
• The Recess Queen
• Wemberly Worried
• Owen
• More-igami
• Dinosaurs Before Dark-Magic Tree House #1 (our first chapter book read aloud)
• Because of Winn-Dixie (one of our longer, mid-year chapter books I read aloud)

3. Teaching Students to Describe Story Settings

Next, we focus on describing the setting of the story. We review that the setting tells us when and where the story takes place. To practice describing the setting, we start with some familiar “settings” at school…our classroom, the lunchroom, and the labs and we use our five senses to describe those familiar places.

One of my favorite books for teaching this skill is Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. The beautiful illustrations and descriptive language make it a fantastic choice for discussing setting. The author uses vivid imagery to help readers picture what it’s like to be hiking through the dark and snowy woods on a cold winter night. We work on looking closely at the illustrations and listening for all of the important details about the setting. It’s a great story that leads to rich discussions. This is also a great opportunity to practice using descriptive words in sentences!

📔 Some of my favorite 1st grade books to use for describing the setting:

• Owl Moon
• A Chair for My Mother
• The Water Princess
• Jabari Jumps
• Henry’s Show and Tell
• The Relatives Came
• Max and the Tag-Along Moon
• Make Way for Ducklings
• On Meadowview Street
• The Scarecrow’s Hat

4. Teaching Students to Describe Major Events

Once students understand characters and setting, we move on to describing the major events in a story. We discuss how many things happen throughout a story, but some are more important than others. These major events help us understand the story.

As we read, we stop to discuss important events. We talk about what problem the may characters face, what happens along the way, and how the the problem is solved.

After reading, we work together to identify the major events and sequence them correctly. We generally focus on the most important events from the beginning part of the story, the middle, and the end.

This is also a great opportunity to practice putting events in order and using words like first, next, then, before, after that, later, and finally as students work on describing the major events.

📔 Some of my favorite 1st grade books to use for describing the major events:

• Shortcut
• Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse
• Streganona
• The Leaving Morning
• Bark, George
• How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
• A Big Guy Took My Ball

5. Putting It All Together: Characters, Setting, and Events

Once we’ve practiced describing characters, setting, and major events, it’s time to put it all together! It’s important for students to see how story elements work together to help us understand what we read.

We start by reading a familiar picture book and discussing all three story elements. Together, we describe the characters, including their traits and feelings, identify and describe the setting, and discuss the major events that happen throughout the story. We work on including details from the text in our answers!

📔 Some of my favorite 1st grade books to use for describing characters, setting, and events:

• The Paperboy
• Those Pesky Rabbits
• Knuffle Bunny
• Koala Lou
• Goatilocks
• Strictly No Elephants
• The Dot
• Ol’ Mama Squirrel
• We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
• Can I Play Too?

6. Creating a Story Elements Anchor Chart

Anchor charts are a great way to help students organize their thinking as we describe characters, setting, and major events. We don’t create an anchor chart for every story we read! Sometimes, I’ll quickly jot down our ideas on the whiteboard as we discuss a story. Other times, we simply practice identifying and describing the story elements orally. I like to mix things up so students get plenty of practice! The important thing is that students are thinking about the story and using details to support their answers.

7. Practicing Story Elements with Standards-Based Worksheets

My standards-based reading worksheets are a great way for students to practice identifying and describing characters, settings, and major events independently. They provide an easy way to reinforce what we’ve learned during our read-alouds and class discussions while giving me a quick way to check student understanding or give students a comprehension grade.

⭐ Get 10 RL.1.3 Reading Comprehension Passages HERE!

8. Free Story Elements Bookmark

Help your students remember the important parts of a story with this free story elements bookmark! This printable bookmark helps first graders focus on describing characters, setting, and major events as they read. It’s a simple tool to use when teaching story elements in first grade. Students can use during independent reading, partner reading, or small-group instruction.

👆🏽 Tap the image to grab your FREE story elements bookmark!

Teaching story elements in first grade doesn’t have to be complicated! With engaging read-alouds and meaningful discussions, first graders can learn to describe characters, settings, and major events with confidence.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Teaching!

Jennifer ~ Practical Primary Teacher 🍎🍏

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