Today we read one of my all time favorite books, The Raft by Jim LaMarche.  We are using this book to practice using text evidence (observations), and making inferences about characters.  An example of this from a student in class is: "I infer that his grandma already knew about the raft because it says that she wasn't surprised to see it and because she brought down a life jacket, which is my observation."  We are also using this story to talk about how characters grow and change over the course of a story.  Knowing how characters grow and change in our stories helps us to find the theme, or main idea of a story. 

These are excellent skills for your child to be practicing at home when they talk to you about the books they are reading.  Making inferences about characters seems to come naturally to most kids this age, but it can be fun and challenging when you ask them 'what happened, or what did the author say to make you think that?'.