Giving Them the Words

I love teaching reading strategies like making connections.  I  have also always been VERY frustrated by the fact that though they seemed to understand how making connections helped them as a reader, so many of my students could not consistently and clearly express meaningful connections independently. This last year the amazing and talented ladies of the literacy staff in our building gave my class the words they needed to share oral and written connections.

The focus of the lesson on sharing a connection focused on three areas.
    1) Citing the specific reference from their book
    2) Sharing the personal experience that related to that passage
    3) Including how comprehension was improved

One of the books we read during this lesson was The Relatives Came.  Then gave the students a form that looked like this.

Name ________________     Date ____________________ # ___

                Title of Book: _____________________________________

When I read the part about ________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

it reminded me of _______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________.

This helped my comprehension because _______________________________

_____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________.

 We practiced and shared several times. We did a lot of sharing and discussing what made a Proficient connection and what made a Basic connection. We then transitioned from the form to just having a chart with the format posted. (I am TOTALLY kicking myself I never took a picture of the chart, it was actually rather cute.) I like the the structure of the lesson and it seemed to go well. At the same time I wondered if we had been too structured with it. I was not sure it would work long term.

   About 2 weeks later, my student teacher did an amazing lesson with Don't Laugh At Me. It was after this lesson that I first began to realize I was seeing results. EVERY member of the class used the format and wrote at least one meaningful connection to this book. (EVEN my IEP students who read and wrote at 1st grade level!) I was beginning to get excited.

 Then came the day, three months later, when our school counselor came in to do her monthly lesson. She shared the book The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. (This was perfect because we had just worked on compare and contrast using different versions of The Three Little Pigs, but that is for another blog.) When she finished, the class began to share and reflect with her. She called on one of my low academic and severely ADHD girls who had a real tendency to give rude and inappropriate comments. I held my breath. The student, in a big strong confident voice said "When you read the part about how the pig's heart changed, it reminded me of  the movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". That is what happened to the Grinch's heart too, and that made me understand the lesson in this book."

I was completely BLOWN AWAY. When we started I had worried that we were limiting their thinking. Now I realized that we had instead given them a voice. They had the words and could clearly share their thinking.

If you are interested in our form here is a google docs link. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bwb_DZiUmtR7MS0yQy12VzZnTWM

We also created a rubric for scoring connections. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AVnXum_fnDm3ixDp01F_AuuUdhuesNKeO4bWu2sBckI/edit