Grades 6–8 · Reading & Writing · Free sample
Reading Like a Detective: Finding Evidence in a Short Story
About 40 minutes
Students learn to back up their ideas about a story with evidence from the text — the core skill behind every good essay.
Your child will
- Make a claim about a character
- Find and quote evidence from the text
- Explain how the evidence supports the claim
You'll need
- Any short story your child enjoys (folk tales and Aesop's fables work well)
- Highlighter or sticky notes
- Notebook
Step by step
- 1
Read once for enjoyment
Read the story straight through. Ask, "What did you think of the main character?"
- 2
Make a claim
Turn the answer into a claim: "The fox is clever but selfish." A claim is an opinion someone could disagree with.
- 3
Hunt for clues
Reread and highlight two or three lines that prove the claim — things the character says, does, or that others say about them.
- 4
Explain the link
For each quote, write one sentence that begins "This shows… because…". This is the step most students skip.
- 5
Write a paragraph
Put it together: claim, quote, explanation, quote, explanation, closing sentence. That's a complete evidence paragraph.
Keep going
Swap roles: you make a claim about the story and your child finds evidence that argues against it.
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