Story Elements Activities for 1st, 2nd & 3rd Grade | Posters & Graphic Organizers
Teaching story elements to young readers doesn’t have to be complicated. If your students are learning to identify characters, setting, problem, solution, plot, and beginning, middle and end, having clear visuals and simple activities can make these concepts much easier to understand.
I love using story elements posters, task cards, story map graphic organizers, and sentence stems because they give students repeated opportunities to practise the same skills with different fiction stories.
What’s Included?
This print-and-go resource includes everything you need to teach and reinforce story elements:
- Step-by-step lessons and teacher notes
- Differentiated story map graphic organizers
- Cut-and-paste sentence stem activities
- Character, setting, plot, problem and solution posters
- Beginning, Middle and End poster
- Story elements task cards
The resources can be used throughout the year with picture books, short stories, read alouds, and other fiction texts.
Story Elements Activities for 1st, 2nd & 3rd Grade | Posters & Graphic Organizers
Teach Story Elements With Visuals
When introducing a new story, I recommend focusing on one story element at a time.
Start with characters and ask:
Who is in the story?
Then move to setting:
Where does the story take place?
Once students are comfortable with these concepts, introduce problem and solution:
What went wrong? How was the problem solved?
Keeping your story elements posters displayed gives students an easy visual reference whenever they need a reminder.
Use Story Maps for Reading Comprehension
Once you’ve taught the individual story elements, bring everything together with a story map graphic organizer.
Students can record the:
- Character
- Setting
- Problem
- Important events
- Solution
- Beginning, middle and end
For students who need additional support, use differentiated organizers, sentence stems, drawing, or cut-and-paste activities.
For students who are ready for more independence, choose an open-ended organizer and encourage them to write their own responses.
Turn Story Elements Into Narrative Writing
Story elements are also a great starting point for narrative writing activities.
After reading a fiction story, have students use their completed story map to help them retell or write about the story.
Sentence stems such as:
- The character is…
- The setting is…
- The problem is…
- First…
- Next…
- Finally…
can help young writers organise their thoughts and turn their ideas into sentences.
As students become more confident, gradually remove the sentence stems and encourage independent writing.
Story Elements Activities for 1st, 2nd & 3rd Grade | Posters & Graphic Organizers
Try Story Elements Task Cards
Need a quick activity for your literacy block?
Use story elements task cards after a read aloud or fiction reading lesson. They work well for:
- Whole-class instruction
- Small groups
- Partner work
- Literacy centers
- Independent practice
- Reading comprehension checks
They’re also a great way to see which students can identify story elements independently and which students still need support.
Easy Ways to Use These Resources
You can use these 1st grade ELA activities in several ways:
During a read aloud: Introduce a story element and ask students to listen for it.
In small groups: Use the posters and graphic organizers to model your thinking and guide students through a story.
At literacy centers: Let students practise with task cards or independent story maps.
For writing: Use sentence stems to help students turn their reading responses into narrative writing.
For independent practice: Provide a differentiated organizer that matches each student’s learning needs.
Use With Any Fiction Story
The best part is that you don’t need a particular book or story to use these activities.
Use them with your favourite fiction picture books, short stories, guided reading texts, or classroom read alouds.
Display the posters throughout the year, then pull out the task cards, story maps and writing activities whenever you need extra practice.
A Simple, Reusable Story Elements Toolkit
If you’re looking for an easy way to teach story elements, reading comprehension, story retelling, and narrative writing, this print-and-go resource gives you a flexible collection of classroom tools.
Students can learn to identify characters, setting, plot, problem, solution, and story sequence while building the skills they need to talk and write about what they have read.
Print, display, practise and reuse throughout the school year!
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