Making Inferences With Pictures: Teaching Theme

One of my favorite ways to boost students reading comprehension is to use a picture of the day routine. Picture of the day is a great way to help students develop inferencing and critical thinking skills, but it can also help them build other comprehension skills and strategies that will help them grow as readers.

This picture of the day set will help your students focus on all things related to identifying and understanding theme.

Be sure to checkout the preview to learn more about this resource.

What’s Included?

• 10 picture of the day routines with a theme focus
• Questions and prompts to help develop students understanding of theme
• 4 different options for printing

What are the formatting options?

• PowerPoint Presentation – Each slide includes the picture of the day along with questions that focus on identifying the theme or the life lesson. The questions will encourage students to think about a possible theme for the photograph. This option works great if you want to incorporate picture of the day as part of your morning meeting or as a warm-up to your reading block
• Student Worksheet – You also have the option of printing each picture of the day as an individual student worksheet. Students get the same picture and questions, but it is formatted in a way where students can individually write their response to the questions.
• Half Page Task Cards – Same pictures. Same questions. This option works great if you want to use picture of the day as part of your literacy centers or in work stations.
• Digital Option – If you are teaching virtual this next year at all, there is a digital option included. The student worksheet is also available as a digital version created using Google Slides.

How does picture of the day work?

• Students study the picture.
• They apply their reading comprehension skills to the picture – in this case they think about the theme or life lesson of the photographer and people in the photos and how it connects to the the other elements in the picture.
• Students respond in writing or share their ideas during a class discussion.
• Using picture of the day will help students become more confident and familiar with vocabulary related to identifying theme and help them apply some of the same comprehension skills that will help them become stronger readers.

When could I use this resource during my day?

• Morning Meeting
• Reading Warm-Up
• Literacy Centers/Workstations
• Sub Tub
• Homework
• Reading Comprehension Skills Assessment
• Spiral Review
• Independent Practice