Module 3 Rise to the Occasion
📚 Literacy: HMH Into Reading Grade 4 — Module 3
“Rise to the Occasion”
Hello Families!
We are excited to begin our next HMH Into Reading module, Module 3: “Rise to the Occasion.” In this module, students will explore what it means to face a challenge, persevere through difficult situations, and find ways to overcome obstacles.
Our guiding question throughout the module will be:
💪 What does it take to meet a challenge?
Students will read about people and characters who face different kinds of challenges. As they read, they will think about the choices people make, the support they receive from others, and the personal qualities that help them keep going when things become difficult.
📖 What Will We Be Learning?
Throughout this module, students will read a variety of genres and practice important reading skills, including:
- Identifying the main idea and key details
- Determining the theme of a story
- Identifying and analyzing challenges and conflicts
- Describing how characters respond to challenges
- Making inferences using evidence from the text
- Comparing and contrasting information across texts
- Identifying an author's claim and supporting evidence
- Using text evidence to support their thinking
- Summarizing what they have read
- Making connections between different texts
- Understanding and using new vocabulary
- Participating in collaborative discussions
Students will also practice thinking beyond the text by asking themselves questions such as:
“What would I have done in this situation?”
“What helped this person keep going?”
“What can we learn from the way this challenge was handled?”
📚 What Will We Read?
Throughout the module, students will encounter a variety of texts, including:
- Never Give Up! — an argumentative text
- Rent Party Jazz by William Miller — historical fiction
- Hurricanes: A Force of Nature — informational text
- Catch Me If You Can by Carol Schaffner — a play
- My Diary from Here to There by Amada Irma Pérez — autobiographical fiction
- Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park — historical fiction and the focal text
These texts allow students to explore challenges from many different perspectives and genres.
Students will have opportunities to compare how different people and characters respond when faced with difficult situations and to consider the role that perseverance, courage, determination, and support from others can play.
✍️ Writing in Module 3
Writing will connect closely to our reading throughout this module.
Students will work toward writing an opinion essay about challenges and perseverance. They will use ideas and evidence from the texts we read to develop and support their opinions.
Students will practice:
- Developing a clear opinion or claim
- Supporting their ideas with reasons and evidence
- Using information from multiple texts
- Organizing their writing clearly
- Writing strong paragraphs
- Using transitions to connect ideas
- Revising and editing their work
- Explaining their thinking clearly
One of our culminating writing tasks will ask students to think about which character trait is most important when overcoming a challenge and support their opinion with evidence.
We will continue practicing the writing process:
Plan → Draft → Revise → Edit → Publish
🏠 Learning at Home
This module provides lots of opportunities for meaningful conversations at home!
💪 Talk About Challenges
Ask your child:
- “What is something that was difficult for you at first but became easier?”
- “What do you do when something feels too hard?”
- “Who helps you when you are facing a challenge?”
- “What does it mean to persevere?”
- “Is giving up ever the best choice? Why or why not?”
Encourage your child to explain their thinking rather than simply giving a one-word answer.
📖 Connect Reading to Real Life
When your child is reading independently, ask:
“What challenge is the character facing?”
Then ask:
“How is the character handling the challenge?”
Finally:
“What would you have done?”
These questions help children move beyond simply retelling a story and encourage them to analyze characters and themes.
🧩 Share a Family Story
Tell your child about a time when you faced a challenge.
It could be something from childhood, school, work, sports, moving to a new place, learning a new skill, or anything else that required perseverance.
Talk about:
- What made the situation difficult?
- What did you do?
- Who helped you?
- Did you make mistakes?
- What did you learn?
- Would you handle it differently now?
Your family stories can help children see that everyone faces challenges, and challenges can teach us important lessons.
📝 Practice Opinions
Ask your child a simple question such as:
“What is the most important quality a person needs when facing a challenge?”
Maybe they choose:
- Courage
- Perseverance
- Patience
- Confidence
- Determination
- Asking for help
- Teamwork
Have them give at least two reasons for their opinion.
You can even challenge them to say:
“I believe ______ is important because ______ and ______.”
This is great practice for the opinion writing we will be doing in class!
📚 Keep Reading!
Continue encouraging your child to read independently each day. After reading, ask:
- “What challenge did the character face?”
- “How did the character respond?”
- “What evidence from the book supports your answer?”
- “What lesson did the character learn?”
- “What would you have done differently?”
- “How does this story connect to something you have experienced?”
Even a short conversation about a book can strengthen reading comprehension and critical thinking.