Reading Strategy: Make Connections

Some stories will remind you of something else you have read. When you connect ideas from other texts to what you are reading, you get a deeper understanding of the story.

Reading Strategy Make Connections
    How to make Text-To-Text Connections

  • 1. Make Connections As you read, pause to make connections to other things you have read. Ask yourself: Are the ideas the same or different in the texts?

  • 2. Increase Your Understanding Explain how the text-to-text connections help you. They might help you understand a character’s feelings better, keep you interested in the text, or make you want to learn more.

Strategy in Action

Here’s how one student made text-to-text connections.

Look Into the Text
For Reuven the furrier it was a bad year, and after long hesitation he decided to sell Zlateh the goat. She was old and gave little milk. Feivel the town butcher had offered eight gulden for her. Such a sum would buy Hanukkah candles, potatoes and oil for pancakes, gifts for the children, and other holiday necessaries for the house. Reuven told his oldest boy Aaron to take the goat to town.

The beginning reminds me of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Jack’s mom made him sell their cow.

I wonder what Aaron will do with the goat.

Practice Together

Now make your own connections. As you read “Zlateh the Goat,” make a connection to something else you have read. Follow the steps in the How-To box. Write your connection on a sticky note, and put it next to the text.