Five Quick Tips for Fun Fiction Discussions

As parents, we want to engage with our kids about their reading. Here are some easy go-to strategies that work with nearly any fiction. What follows is a series of questions or prompts to share with your child.

1.     ASK A CHARACTER – “If you could ask one character a question, who would it be and what would you ask him or her?” Then ask questions like, “Why’d you choose that person?” Another option would be, “How do you think that character will answer the question?

2.     FIVE WORDS – “How do you summarize the chapter, group of chapters, or the whole book, in five words?” The words don’t have to be a complete sentence. Have several people do this and talk about how your answers differ. It’s hard to capture the whole story in five words, but the challenge is what makes it fun. For variety, you could sometimes ask your kids to summarize the story in three words, one sentence, or two sentences. Follow their answers with discussing which parts of the story their summary emphasized or left out.

3.     WRITE A NOTE – Ask your child to write a letter of at least fifty words from one character in the story to another character in the story. Then another student could write a note in reply to the “character” who wrote to him or her. Encourage your child to explain the thought process regarding what to say to the other person.

4.     BIGGEST CHALLENGE - Toss this question at your youngster— “Which character faced the biggest challenge?” Have your student explain and defend the answer. Hopefully another youngster will choose a different character or different insights into the character.

5.     INTERVIEW A CHARACTER – Interview your child who pretends to be a character in the story. Good questions allow room for interpretation and inference. Examples would be, “What’s your greatest fear?” or “What do you plan to do next?” Remind your child to answer from the viewpoint of the character. Avoid fact-checking questions such as “Where did you hide from the enemy in chapter two?”

. . . is the award-winning author of the New Classics featured book, Hunger Winter, which comes with a free study guide to download.

DID YOU KNOW? Rob's new book (Time for Courage, the sequel to Hunger Winter) is now available! When the Nazis target Jewish children, the kids’ only hope is the Dutch Resistance. But these brave volunteers are outnumbered, outgunned, and all they have is each other.

See Time for Courage here: https://tinyurl.com/bdhjz9k6

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