Print
A Story Like the Wind / During Reading / First Encounters /
Everyone Has a Story to Tell
Building knowledge of characters using clues in the text to make inferences.
Lesson length: 1 session
Lesson from A Story Like the Wind series
Required reading: Pages 38-45
Text potential
- Inference opportunities: Character Inference
Strategies used
- Close Reading
- Comprehension: Inference Skills
Purpose
In this short section, Rami’s story prompts his companions to make connections with their own lives and to share their personal stories. It further develops the idea of shared humanity and shows that before the troubles, these people lived ordinary lives with the same preoccupations as people all over the world.
Preparation
- Character Inference chart with notes from the earlier session.
Process
Read this section aloud and then ask the children to re-read in pairs.
Ask them to refer to the character inference chart completed in a previous session and to add further notes.
| Character | Information | Inference (using information from the text) |
| Nor | ||
| Mustafa | ||
| Bashar | ||
| Amani | ||
| Mohammed | ||
| Yousef | ||
| Hassan |
Final reflection
Briefly discuss:
- Have we learnt anything new about Rami and the other refugees in this section?
Contributors
Nikki Gamble
Nikki Gamble
Director, Just Imagine
Nikki has worked extensively in schools across the UK and internationally. She is the author of Exploring Children’s Literature (4th edit) (2019) and co-author of Guiding Readers (2016) which was awarded the UKLA Academic Book of the Year Award 2017. Nikki is KS2 reading advisor and series consultant for Oxford University Press and content creator for the Oxford School Improvement and Oxford Owl websites. Nikki is Associate Consultant at the University of London, Institute of Education and Honorary Fellow at the University of Winchester
Director, Just Imagine
Nikki has worked extensively in schools across the UK and internationally. She is the author of Exploring Children’s Literature (4th edit) (2019) and co-author of Guiding Readers (2016) which was awarded the UKLA Academic Book of the Year Award 2017. Nikki is KS2 reading advisor and series consultant for Oxford University Press and content creator for the Oxford School Improvement and Oxford Owl websites. Nikki is Associate Consultant at the University of London, Institute of Education and Honorary Fellow at the University of Winchester