Hi friends! Today we are going to be looking at how to make connections while we are reading. Our essential question is, how can I make connections while reading? Connections we can think of like puzzle pieces.
The pieces fit together to make a picture. So when we make connections, we fit together things we've seen, things we might already know. We put them together to make a picture so that we can better understand what we're reading. There are three ways to make connections with a book. The first way is text to self.
The second way is text to text. And the third way is text to world. Before we start making connections, we're going to look a little bit deeper into each one of these. Let's start with text to self. When we make text to self connections, we read a text and then we think.
Where have I seen this before in my own life? What does this remind me of that may have happened to me or maybe that I thought about or I saw in my life? We might say something like, it reminds me of a time when... And then we would make our connection.
So for example, a text to self connection I've made before is with the recess queen. When I read the recess queen for the first time, I thought about when I was in second grade, there was a girl on the playground who was always mean. I remember that one time she even pulled my hair. So what I could write as a text to self-connection would be, when I read the part about Mean Gene being mean to the other kids on the playground, I think about how when I was in second grade, there was a mean girl on the playground.
One time she even pulled my hair. By making this text to self-connection, it helps me understand what's happening in the story, and maybe even how people feel. Another text of self-connection I could make is with the story, What Do You Do With a Problem?
Well, when I read What Do You Do With a Problem, this book reminded me of one time when I was younger and I had a problem. I had built with my brother, both my brothers, and my sister a big fort in our backyard. But one day, there was a huge storm and it knocked over all our fort and it fell on top of some of our toys and they broke.
This boy in the story had a problem just like I did. Listen to my text to self-connection that I made. This book reminded me of one time when I was younger and I had a problem. My fort got destroyed in a big storm. All my hard work was ruined and my toys were broken.
I was so upset but I took that problem and I fixed it. I made an even better fort. That's just how, like in the text, the boy took his problem and he made it beautiful.
The second kind of connection is a text-to-text connection. Text-to-text connection happens when you read a text and it makes you think about another text that you've read before. It might be a poem.
It might have been a story. Anything like that. You might say something like, it reminds me of the book.
Here's an example. We've read both of these stories, What Do You Do With a Problem? and The Most Magnificent Thing. When I read the part in What Do You Do With a Problem? when the boy was really afraid, but he didn't give up and he tackled his problem.
That made me think about another story we have read, The Most Magnificent Thing. In this story, the girl gets really frustrated and nothing is working, just like how the boy tries to run away from his problem, but it doesn't work. But in The Most Magnificent Thing, the girl keeps trying until she finally succeeds at making what she wants. In both stories, the characters kept trying until they finally got it. This is a text-to-text connection.
We connected two stories that we read. The third type of connection is text-to-world. When we think about a text-to-world connection, we read a story, and that makes us think about something that has happened in the world or something we've thought about.
Some things we might say include, This book reminds me of something in the world. This is similar to, This is like something I heard on the news. This happened when... All of these are text-to-world connections.
Here's an example. We've read the Lorax. Now, in the Lorax, all of the Truffula trees are getting cut down.
When we read the Lorax, we thought about how so many trees in the Amazon rainforest are also being cut down. That was a text to world connection. We thought about what we read in the text, and then we connected it to what we knew was happening in the world.
We said, when I read the story about all of the Truffula trees getting cut down, I thought about how so many trees in the Amazon rainforest are being cut down. This is something that is happening in real life. We made a text-to-world connection.
So in conclusion, there are three ways to make connections with a book. First, text to self. The second, text to text. And the third, text to world. All right, readers, go make some connections.