Helping your child to build reading comprehension doesn't have to be a pen and pencil task, or even a formal activity. One of the easiest and most natural ways of understanding stories is by making connections. Children begin doing this long before they are reading independently, especially when parents or other caring adults take the time to talk about books with them. Making connections activates the prior experiences and background knowledge that a reader brings to the text. Drawing on this background knowledge is one of the strategies that helps readers understand what they are reading.
Thinking out loud while you are reading to your child, asking them to do the same, and thinking aloud periodically when they are reading to you opens the door to a deeper understanding.
When we talk about "making connections while reading", there are three basic types of connections we are talking about: text-to-text connections, text-to-self connections and text-to-world connections.
When we talk about "making connections while reading", there are three basic types of connections we are talking about: text-to-text connections, text-to-self connections and text-to-world connections.
For young children, the easiest kind of connection for them to make is a text-to-self connection. This deeply personal type of connection connects something in a story to something in the reader's life. For example, while reading a story about a farm, the reader might observe "This story reminds me of going to Uncle Ted's farm last summer when we were on vacation." The reader has connected something within their personal experience to some aspect of the book. This can relate to events or emotions. For instance, if a character in a story is sad, the reader may relate to that emotion even if it was under very different circumstances. "I felt really scared like that when I got lost at the supermarket." We can share our own connections and encourage our children to make connections as well by asking questions such as:
What does this remind you of in your own life?
Has something like this ever happened to you?
How is this similar to or different from your life?
What did you feel like when you read this?
What does this remind you of in your own life?
Has something like this ever happened to you?
How is this similar to or different from your life?
What did you feel like when you read this?
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