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A real-world connection

A Connection Between the Read and Real Life in Your Organization

Strong readers rely on previous expertise and understanding to help them understand what they
are reading, so that they can use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers
frequently step straight through the text without stopping to consider whether the text makes
sense on the basis of their own context information, or whether their knowledge can be used to
help them interpret ambiguous or difficult materials. By showing students how to connect to
email, they can better understand what they're hearing (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing
previous information and understanding is a helpful starting point for instructional techniques,
since every student has the expertise, knowledge, thoughts and feelings they can draw on. Keene
and Zimmerman (1997) argued that students learn more when they make various kinds of
connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world. Text-to-self links are extremely intimate
connections created by a reader between a piece of reading content and a reader's own
experience or life. An example of a text-to-self relation may be, "This story reminds me of a trip
we took to my grandfather’s farm. “We went to my grandfather's farm. "Sometimes, when
reading, readers are reminded of other things they have read, of other books by the same author,
of stories of a similar genre, or even of the same subject. These types of relations are text-to-text
links. Readers gain perspective during reading by reflecting about how the material they read
relates to other common texts. "This character has the same problem I read about in a story last
year," will be an example of a text-to-text link. Text-to-world relations are the broader
connections a reader takes to a reading situation. We all have ideas about how the world works
that goes far beyond our own personal experiences. We learn about things through television,
movies, magazines, and newspapers Mostly, when you teach science, social sciences and
literature, it is the links text-to-world that teachers strive to strengthen. The reader says, "I saw a
program on television that talked about things described in this article." which is only an
example of a Text-to-World relations.

Works Cited
Buehl, D. Comprehension Teaching Learning Activity Articles: "Yeah, that reminds me of...."
Retrieved October 6, 2004 from http://wilearns.state.wi.us/apps/default.asp?cid=710
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A real-world connection
Florida Online Reading Professional Development (2004). Lesson 8: Scaffolding Students’
Comprehension and Guiding Students Toward Independence in Reading. University of
Central Florida, Orlando, FL. 

Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance
understanding. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.