Discerning Fact From Opinion Educational Resources K12 Learning, Comprehension, Practical Life Skills, Reading Lesson Plans, Activities, Experiments, Homeschool Help

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Cheeseburgers are better than chicken nuggets. This is a fact.

...or is it?

girl with a burger and chicken

How do you know when a statement is a fact or an opinion?

Dig into this lesson to find out.

First, we need to know how fact and opinion are defined. You can't identify facts and opinions without first knowing what those terms mean.

	fact	→	statements that are known and can be proven true
	opinion	→	a view or statement that cannot be proven right or wrong

Using these definitions, let's look at the statement from above again:

Cheeseburgers are better than chicken nuggets.

Is this a fact or an opinion?

opinion box

But why is it an opinion?

Food preferences are different for every person, and there is no true or false expression of this preference.

Some people love a good burger. Some prefer chicken nuggets. And some are vegetarian! This is just an individual judgment based on what the speaker likes.

Watch FACTS VS. OPINIONS VS. ROBOTS by Michael Rex | Official Book Trailer, from Penguin Kids, for a quick review:

Signal Words

Statements often give us clues to determine if they are facts or opinions. These clues are called signal words, and when you see them in the sentence, they can indicate what kind of statement it is.

	Fact Signal Words		Opinion Signal Words
	report		good / bad
	confirm		view
	verify		think
	prove		feel
	corroborate		believe
	record		prefer
	document		might
	substantiate		should
	numbers		always / never
	statistics		interpretation
	dates		point of view
	times		usually
	sources		probably

Keep in mind, signal words are not enough to take a fact at face value!

Many people can make errors in the way they write or speak about supposed facts. It is necessary to follow up on facts you encounter to verify that they are accurate and true.

This is why factual information also has a source where it was found. If you are interested in the fact or plan to repeat it somewhere, you have a responsibility to fact-check the information to make sure it is correct before you share it.

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