Teaching students about facts and opinions helps them to develop critical thinking skills. A fact is a true statement. An opinion is a person’s belief about something. You can include the domains of reading or listening, speaking, and writing in fact and opinion practice activities.

Keywords

Keywords are one way to support students as they are learning about fact and opinion. Some helpful keywords for stating an opinion are: think, feel, should, good, better, best, bad, worst. It is important to point out that not all opinions will have these keywords.

Reading & Listening

Have students find examples of facts and opinions in text. This is a good opportunity to expose students to grade level reading material with support. Begin with material that students have background knowledge of. In a small group, or on the computer read out loud text that is above a student’s independent reading level.

Readworks has free reading passages that contain facts and opinions.

Newsela has free news articles along with a special opinion section.

I have created short reading passages that have facts and opinions.

Speaking & Writing

Pictures are a great way to have students practice creating their own facts and opinions. To help build students vocabulary and background knowledge, try first using the picture word induction model to label the picture. You can take it a step further and add in grammar practice by categorizing the words by parts of speech. Next have students practice creating sentences that tell facts about the picture. This can be orally, in writing, or both depending on the age and levels of your students. Finally have students create opinion sentences about the picture.

To start with use a general picture that you think your students will be familiar with. Then you can add in pictures that connect to other content areas that you are studying such as science or social studies.