Making Connections
Making Connections
When you put together the piece of puzzle, you make connections.
When you read, you also make connections.
As you read a book, you ask yourself, "How does this fit with what I've experienced, what I've read, and what I know about the world?"
Making connections when you're reading is like putting together the pieces of a larger puzzle in your head. They help you form a deeper understanding of the book and bring more meaning to what you are reading.
When you make connections while reading, you say (or think) things like:
- This reminds me of...
- I know another...
- I've read another...
- I remember when...
- This part is like...
- This character is like...
- This makes me think of a time...
There are three types of connections good readers make when they read:
- Text-to-Text
- Text-to-Self
- Text-to-World
Text-to-Text Connections
Text-to-text connections are the most basic kind of connections readers make. When you make a text-to-text connection, you say:
- The way this story is written reminds me of...
- The (characters, setting, plot, theme, tone) of this book remind me of...
- I've read another book where...
Text-to-Self Connections
Text-to-self connections help you go a little deeper in the book by connecting what you're reading to your own life. When you make a text-to-self connection, you say:
- I can relate to this because...
- I had a similar experience when...
- This is important to me because...
- This makes me feel...
- I know how the character felt when...
- This reminds me of something that happened in my own life.
Text-to-World Connections
Text-to-world connections take you even deeper into a text and help you connect what you're reading to the world around you. When you make text-to-world connections, you say:
- This reminds me of...because...
- I know about this because...
- In history, the same thing happened when...
- A famous person also...
- When I read this, I thought about...
- I saw something on the news that reminded me of...
Good readers make these kinds of connections all the time. The practice questions and worksheet below will help you understand more about how readers make these types of connections so you can make them the next time you read.
Related Worksheets:
Related Lessons: