Making Connections

Even though all of my students are mostly fluent readers, I think it’s important to revisit reading strategies throughout the year to allow students to THINK about what they’re reading. By creating an opportunity for students to discuss and interact with a text, the learning is automatically deepened and the students feel empowered as good readers.

The first reading comprehension strategy that we revisited this year was Making Connections. When a reader makes a connection to a text, they generally make one of the following 3 connections:

1.       Text-to-Self- This is when the reader connects what they’re reading to a personal experience.

·        “That reminds me of a time when I…”

2.       Text-to-World- This is when a connection can be made from the story to something that happens in the world.

·        “This makes me think of something that happens…”

3.       Text-to-Text- This is when what you’re reading reminds you of something else you’ve read.

·        “This is similar to a story I read about…”

All of these are things that fluent readers do even without realizing it. That’s what’s so cool about teaching reading… you’re giving them skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?

Since we’ve been working with non-fiction texts for the last month or so, I was getting a little bored with the left-brain stuff so I thought, let’s do something a little different. I chose the book Harvesting Hope by Kathleen Krull for a few reasons. One, it’s a short read so my students with short attention spans will stay engaged throughout the lesson. Two, I love the life story of Cesar Chavez and what better way to tie in the theme of citizenship & government? Third, there are about a thousand connections that a reader can make with that book.

Before reading the book, I handed out a worksheet on Reading Strategies that I created a while ago and we went through them as a group as a refresher and filed the worksheet in our Reader’s Notebook. Then, I told them we were going to practice the Making Connections strategy while reading Harvesting Hope. We read the first few pages aloud and paused after each page so I could model the strategy of connecting to the text. Later, I turned them loose to finish the book on their own and write down at least 2 examples of each connection (TtS, TtW, TtT) in their notebooks to share at circle time. The following day for task board, the students took their notes from the previous day and made these awesome thought bubble pieces about the connections they made. They turned great and they had a fun time doing them. Check it out!