📖 ReadingLevel 1Lesson 10
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Main Characters and Setting

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Learning Objectives

  • 1Identify the main character as the person or animal the story is mostly about
  • 2Distinguish the main character from minor characters using story evidence
  • 3Identify the setting as the place
  • 4Time where the story happens
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Mini Lesson

Every story has two key ingredients you need to find: the main character and the setting. Once you can spot these, you understand the whole shape of the story.

What is the main character?

  • The main character is the person, animal, or creature the story is mostly about.
  • They appear on almost every page and things happen TO them or BECAUSE of them.
  • A story may have other characters too — but the main character is the most important one.
  • Clue: ask yourself — "Who does the story follow from start to finish?"

What is the setting?

  • The setting is the place where the story happens — a park, a library, a forest, a house.
  • It can also include time — morning, winter, long ago, in the future.
  • Writers often tell you the setting in the first few sentences.
  • Clue: ask yourself — "Where and when does this story take place?"

How to find them

  • Read the first page carefully — setting clues are usually there.
  • Notice which character the story keeps coming back to — that is your main character.
  • Ask: "Who is this story about?" and "Where are they?"
Storybook cover showing characters in front and setting behindA storybook cover with a castle and forest in the background labeled Setting and two character silhouettes in the foreground labeled Characters.Every story cover shows both:SettingCharacters
Book cover — characters in front, setting behind.
Two column story chart with characters and settingA two column chart. The left column labeled Characters holds two character name boxes for Rosa and the bird. The right column labeled Setting shows a forest scene with a tree and the word forest.Story chart — fill in both columns:CharactersRosaMAINon every pagethe birdminorWho the story followsSettingforest · morningWhere + when it happens
A story chart — characters on the left, setting on the right.
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Ask yourself: "Who does the story follow — that is the main character. Where does it all happen — that is the setting."

Vocabulary
Main character
The person, animal, or creature the story is mostly about — the one the story follows from start to finishe.g. Rosa in "Rosa and the Old Tree"
Minor character
A character who appears briefly in the story but is not the one the whole story followse.g. the small bird that sits on a branch for one page
Setting
The place and time where the story happense.g. a forest, one morning
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