MAKING CONNECTIONS

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Making connections is a critical reading comprehension strategy

that helps students make meaning of what they are reading. 
When students make connections to the texts that they are
reading, it helps them to make sense of what they read, retain the
information better, and engage more with the text itself.
 STUDENTS CAN MAKE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN:

• the text and themselves

• the text and another text
• the text and the world around them
 TEXT-TO-SELF CONNECTIONS:

• These are connections where students connect what they are reading to personal experiences
or knowledge.  Students with a wide range of experiences will often be able to make more
insightful and complex connections.  Students with more limited experiences may struggle
to make connections or create vague, general connections.

Example of Text to Self:  “This story reminds me of a vacation that I took to the ocean, just
like the main character.”
 TEXT-TO-TEXT CONNECTIONS

• These connections are made when a student can connect what they are reading to other
books that they have read or listened to before.  They may make connections that show how
the books share the same author, have similar characters, events, or settings, are the same
genre, or are on the same topic.  A solid text to text connection occurs when a student is able
to apply what they’ve read from one text to another text.

Example of Text to Text:  “I read another book about spiders that explained that spiders have
venom and in this book, I am learning about the top 10 dangerous spiders of the world.”
 TEXT-TO-WORLD CONNECTIONS

• These are connections where students connect what they are reading to real events (past of
present), social issues, other people, and happenings going on in the world.  Students learn
about the world from what they hear on TV, movies, magazines, and newspapers.  Effective
text to world connections happen when students can use what they have learned through
these mediums to enhance their understanding of the text that they are reading.
Example of Text to World:  “I saw on the news about how water pollution was affecting
marine animals, and in this book I am learning about why pollution can make a marine animal
sick.
In using the making connection strategy, readers get to connect the text to themselves, another
etxt they have already read and to the world. When readers have prior knowledge and they
connect this prior knowledge to what they are reading, it facilitates comprehension. It
simplifies meaning making in reading.
This is further explained by Correia, Bleicher, 2008:
When readers engage with an unfamiliar text, they rely on their prior knowledge (e.g.,
personal experiences, conceptual understanding, other texts) to make sense or meaning of the
text. According to Keene and Zimmermann (1997), readers make three types of connections
before, during, or after reading:
• (a) text-to-self connections;
• (b) text-to text connections; and
• (c) text-to-world connections.
• For example, if a student is reading about sedimentary rocks in a science textbook, she is
more likely to understand what she is reading if she is a rock collector (text-to-self
connection).
• If she relates what she is reading in the textbook to other books she has read about rocks, her
understanding and comprehension will also improve (text-to-text connection).
• Furthermore, her understanding can be deepened by connecting what she reads in the
textbook to world events or other phenomena she may not have been personally involved in,
but has knowledge of, such as the Mount St. Helen’s eruption (text-to-world connection)