Elementary pupils, depending on age, should be able to identify elements such as plot, setting, characters and point of view. Educators may, however, have to use different verbiage and ask certain questions to help them in this area. A second- or third-grader may be able to summarize the plot, but a kindergartner or first-grader may need simpler prompts such as "Can you draw a picture of the characters from the story?" or "Draw a picture of your favorite part." A teacher, rather than asking about the setting and point of view, might ask, "Where do the characters live?", "Is this story from long ago, now or the future?" or "Who is telling this story?"
A primary pupil may not grasp the concept of main idea. Teachers might instead ask, "What was this story mostly about?" Perhaps fables like the ones Aesop wrote are so appealing to this age group because they have a clearly stated main idea at the end: the moral of the story. Educators may want to ask pupils to include the moral of the story in their book report.
Critical comprehension skills emerge at this age, such as identifying facts and opinions, distinguishing between reality and fantasy, comparing and contrasting people and things, and seeing the relationship between cause and effect. Younger-grade children likely will not understand if asked outright to compare and contrast two characters or identify causes and effects; however, teachers can ask them to tell how two people in the book are the same (comparing) and how they are different (contrasting). Teachers might ask pupils to draw a picture of a part in the book that the teacher knows shows cause and effect and ask them why this event happened. Pupils of this age can show their opinion of the book by drawing a picture of how this story made them feel or deciding if they would suggest that a friend read it.
Usually the most difficult concepts to grasp, skills such as discerning tone and mood, making predictions and drawing inferences, can also be the most creative parts of a book report for this age group. Directions such as "Draw or tell what you think will happen after the story" prime pupils to think about making predictions, while prompts such as "Draw or tell about the feelings from this story" set the stage for understanding tone and mood later in life.