Literary Elements - Problem and Solution

For the last part of our literary elements focus, for now, we focused on finding the problem and solution in a story.  As the two weeks of instruction went on, the kids really seemed to grasp the concept of finding a problem or problems in a story and then figuring out how the problem was solved. 

To teach problem and solution, I used some of the following picture books:

• Wemberly Worried
• Harry the Dirty Dog
• The Three Little Javelinas
• Prudy's Problem and How She Solved It
• The Kissing Hand

For showing problem and solution during whole group instruction, we used a flow map (thinking maps).  See two examples below.

For the story, Prudy's Problem and How She Solved It:

For the story, The Three Little Javelinas:

 

 

To assess our kiddos, we used a simpler form.  It had a space for a picture of the problem and a picture of the solution at the top. Then, the kids had to fill in the following sentence frame "The problem in the story was..." and "The problem was solved when..."

 

 

This upcoming week, I'm super excited because we are starting our informational text study and will be making Nonfiction Conventions Notebooks from Debbie Miller's, Reading With Meaning. More posts coming soon on this!