Week 4: Making Text Connections (Oct.4)

Suggested Ice Breaker:

  • What Do We Have in Common?: Take turns stating something that describes you (e.g. I like to play volleyball) and if the other person also relates to what you stated they do a move (e.g. a jumping jack)

  • Refer to the Enrichment Program Game & Ice Breaker List for additional activities.

Purpose: Our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing prior knowledge and experiences is a good starting place when teaching strategies because every student has experiences, knowledge, opinions, and emotions that they can draw upon. To support your mentee with comprehension, this week we will focus on making Text-to-self, Text-to-text, and Text-to-world connections.

Context: 

Text-to-self connections are highly personal connections that a reader makes between a piece of reading material and the reader’s own experiences or life. An example of a text-to-self connection might be, "This story reminds me of a vacation we took to my grandfather’s farm."

Sometimes when reading, readers are reminded of other things that they have read, other books by the same author, stories from a similar genre, or perhaps on the same topic. These types of connections are text-to-text connections. Readers gain insight during reading by thinking about how the information they are reading connects to other familiar text. “This character has the same problem that I read about in a story last year,” would be an example of a text-to-text connection.

Text-to-world connections are the larger connections that a reader brings to a reading situation. We all have ideas about how the world works that goes far beyond our own personal experiences. We learn about things through television, movies, magazines, and newspapers. Often it is the text-to-world connections that teachers are trying to enhance when they teach lessons in science, social studies, and literature. An example of a text-to-world connection would be when a reader says, "I saw a program on television that talked about things described in this article."

Connecting to text helps readers:

  • Understand how characters feel and the motivation behind their actions.

  • Have a clearer picture in their head as they read thus making the reader more engaged.

  • Keeps the reader from becoming bored while reading.

  • Sets a purpose for reading and keeps the reader focused.

  • Readers can see how other readers connected to the reading.

  • Forces readers to become actively involved.

  • Helps readers remember what they have read and ask questions about the text.

Practice:

This week, continue reading with your mentee and asking before, during and after reading questions. In addition, after reading the story, practice  asking your mentee Text-to-self, Text-to-text, and Text-to-world connection questions with a book that is M or higher. If your mentee is not at this level, you can do a read aloud for them. 

Text-to-self:

  • What does this remind you of in your life?

  • How is this story this similar to your life?

  • How is this different from your life?

  • Has something like this ever happened to you?

  • How does this relate to your life?

  • What were your feelings when you read this?

Text-to-text:

  • What does this remind you of in another book you’ve read?

  • How is this text similar to other things you’ve read?

  • How is this different from other books you’ve read?

  • Have you read about something like this before?

Text-to-world:

  • What does this remind you of in the real world?

  • How is this text similar to things that happen in the real world?

  • How is this different from things that happen in the real world?

  • How did that part relate to the world around you?