Fix Your Dragon's Attitude Book SEL Character Education Read Aloud Activities is a structured companion for Fix Your Dragon’s Attitude by Steve Herman. It helps students recognize negative thinking, reflect on their choices, and practice developing a more positive attitude through guided discussion and differentiated follow-up activities.

This resource is part of a growing collection of SEL read alouds designed to connect meaningful picture books with explicit instruction in behavior, social-emotional learning, and literacy. It can be used as an interactive read-aloud lesson, a short SEL unit, or a source of flexible character education book activities that teachers can revisit over several days or weeks.

Help Students Understand the Connection Between Thoughts, Choices, and Behavior

Negative attitudes can spread quickly in a classroom. Complaining, refusal, and disengagement affect more than one student’s work. They can also interfere with instruction, relationships, and the overall classroom climate.

Simply telling a student to “fix your attitude” rarely teaches the student what to do differently. Students need help recognizing their negative thinking, understanding how it influences their choices, and practicing a more productive response.

This resource was created to bridge that gap.

Through a relatable picture book, structured discussion, and character education read aloud activities, students explore how thoughts can influence feelings, behavior, and outcomes. They practice reframing negative thoughts, recognizing negative statements, and considering how a different attitude can lead to different choices.

Instead of stopping at behavior correction, these lessons help students understand why their choices matter and what they can do differently next time.

Why Teachers Use This Resource

This companion helps teachers:

• Address negative thinking and a negative attitude in a proactive, supportive way
• Teach students that attitude is something they can recognize and practice changing
• Help students move from complaining and disengagement toward more productive behavior
• Guide students in making positive behavior choices
• Teach choices and consequences in meaningful classroom contexts
• Support student behavior reflection and behavior reflection writing
• Build emotional regulation and responsible decision-making skills
• Reinforce ELA skills while addressing behavior and mindset
• Differentiate instruction with varied activity types and levels

What’s Included

This 97-page resource includes more than 40 differentiated activities. It is intentionally designed so that you do not need to complete every page.

The range of activities allows you to:

• Select activities based on student needs and ability levels
• Use the resource across several days or weeks
• Teach in whole groups, small groups, centers, or individual settings
• Revisit the same concepts without repeating the same assignment
• Combine SEL instruction with reading, writing, and discussion

Interactive Read-Aloud Lesson Plan

The interactive read-aloud section includes:

• Questions to use before, during, and after reading
• Structured discussion prompts
• Connections between the story and real-life behavior
• Opportunities for students to explain their thinking
• Guidance for helping students connect attitude, choices, and consequences

If you are looking for an SEL social emotional read aloud that goes beyond basic comprehension questions, this resource provides the structure needed to turn the story into explicit skill instruction.

Social-Emotional Learning Skills

Students practice:

• Identifying negative thinking and automatic negative thoughts
• Recognizing negative statements and their effect on others
• Reframing negative thoughts
• Choosing a more positive attitude
• Understanding choices and consequences
• Repairing relationships and taking responsibility
• Developing more positive behavior choices
• Reflecting on how thoughts and attitudes affect behavior

The resource includes social emotional regulation learning worksheets that help students slow down, examine their thinking, and consider alternative responses. These emotional regulation activities worksheets can be selected based on the needs of an individual student, small group, or class.

Choices and Consequences Activities

The choices and consequences activities help students examine what happens after a decision—not as punishment, but as a predictable outcome connected to the choice they made.

Students consider:

• What the character was thinking
• What choice the character made
• How that choice affected the situation
• What another choice might have looked like
• How changing a thought could change the outcome

Making choices worksheets and written reflection pages give students a structured way to apply these ideas to their own lives without requiring them to discuss personal situations publicly.

ELA Skills

The resource also includes practice with:

• Predictions
• Summarizing
• Text-to-self connections
• Character analysis
• Cause and effect
• Written responses
• Extended writing prompts

These activities allow teachers to reinforce literacy skills while teaching attitude, accountability, and decision-making.

Additional Supports

Additional materials include:

• Notes to families with strategies for encouraging positive attitudes at home
• Real photographs that increase student connection and engagement
• Differentiated activity formats
• Options for verbal, written, and visual responses

Ways to Use This Resource

Teachers can use these character education book activities during:

• Whole-group interactive read-aloud lessons
• Small-group SEL instruction
• Counseling or behavior-support groups
• Centers or independent work
• Behavior intervention programs
• Self-contained classroom instruction
• Individual reflection and reteaching
• ELA lessons connected to character development

About the Book

In Fix Your Dragon’s Attitude by Steve Herman, Diggory Doo believes the world is working against him until he begins to understand that changing his outlook can change his experience.

The story provides a clear model for discussing how negative thinking can shift into more positive choices. This makes it an effective entry point for teaching attitude, responsibility, emotional regulation, and behavior reflection.

The Bottom Line

If your students struggle with negative thinking, complaining, refusal, or disengagement, this resource provides a clear and engaging way to teach the skills underneath those behaviors. Students learn to recognize their thinking, understand the connection between choices and consequences, and practice responses that can help them in the classroom, in relationships, and beyond school.

Curious for More?

Discover the range of impactful and engaging interactive read alouds & book companions available here, each carefully crafted to ignite student growth on multiple fronts.

Learn More: Interactive Readalouds for SEL and Literacy Skills

Discover the power of an interactive read aloud in promoting social-emotional learning (SEL) and literacy skills in children. Explore the benefits of reading to kids for their academic success and emotional intelligence.

Whether you’re a teacher or a caregiver, learn how interactive read alouds can positively transform young lives with this blog post: Interactive Read Alouds: How to Use Them to Promote SEL and Literacy Skills.

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