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Learn to identify who is telling the story and how their voice sounds.
Imagine you see a giant puddle. You think, 'Yay, a place to splash!' but your cat thinks, 'Oh no, a scary lake!' Who is right? It all depends on who is telling the story!
Every story has a narrator. The narrator is the voice that tells you what is happening. Sometimes the narrator is a character inside the story. Other times, the narrator is like an invisible reporter watching from the outside. When a character speaks out loud, we see quotation marks like these: " ". This tells us a character is talking, not just the narrator describing the scene.
Look at this sentence: 1. The sun was hot. 2. "I need a hat!" shouted Leo.
In step 1, the narrator tells us about the weather. In step 2, the character Leo is speaking because we see the quotation marks.
Quick Check
What do we call the 'voice' that tells the story?
Answer
The narrator.
How do you know if the narrator is actually a character in the story? You have to be a word detective! Look for clue words like I, me, my, or we. If the narrator says, "I walked to the park," they are a character in the story. This is called First-Person point of view. If they only say "He walked to the park," the narrator is outside the story.
Read these two versions of the same event: 1. Version A: 'The boy felt sad when his ice cream fell.' 2. Version B: 'I felt sad when my ice cream fell.'
In Version B, the narrator is the one who dropped the ice cream! We know this because of the word I.
Quick Check
If a narrator says 'My dog is fast,' are they a character in the story?
Answer
Yes, because they used the word 'my'.
Imagine a dog and a human looking at a birthday cake on a table: 1. The Human thinks: 'That cake looks beautiful for the party!' 2. The Dog thinks: 'That cake looks like a giant, yummy snack for me!'
If the dog was the narrator, the story would be about trying to jump high enough to reach the table!
Which word is a clue that the narrator is a character in the story?
What do quotation marks " " show us in a story?
A story would stay exactly the same if a different character told it.
Review Tomorrow
Tomorrow, try to remember the three 'clue words' that tell you a narrator is inside the story.
Practice Activity
Pick your favorite picture book. Look at the first page and see if the narrator uses the word 'I' or 'me'!