Connect Your Life Experiences to Reading Success

Your personal experiences are all the things you have done in your life. These include places you have visited, games you have played, and people you have met. When you read a new story, you can think about your own experiences to help you understand what is happening.

For example, if you read about a character going to the zoo, you can remember when you went to the zoo. This helps you picture what the character sees and feels.

When you read a new book, ask yourself: "Have I done something like this before?" Think about your own memories that are similar to what happens in the story. This helps you understand the characters better and makes the story more real to you.

You can connect your experiences to help with Making Background Knowledge Predictions about what might happen next in the story.

Using your personal experiences makes reading easier because you already know about similar things. If you read about baking cookies and you have helped someone bake before, you understand what the story means. Your memories help you picture what is happening.

This skill builds on Predicting and Using Prior Knowledge to help you become a stronger reader.

Personal Experience: All the things you have done or seen in your own life that help you understand new stories.

Text Connection: When you think "This is like when I..." while reading a story.

Background Knowledge: All the things you learned before that help you understand new books and stories.

Comprehension: When you understand what a story is about and what happens in it.

Prior Experience: Things you have done before that help you understand new situations in stories.

Making Connections: When you think about your own life while reading to help understand the story better.

Relate: When you think "I know how that feels!" about something in a story.

Predict: When you use what you know to guess what comes next in a story.

You can practice this skill by thinking about your own experiences when you read. Ask yourself what you have done that is similar to the story. This helps with Making Connections Text And Experience and makes reading more enjoyable.

Try connecting your experiences to characters' feelings and actions. This prepares you for Comparing Story Character Experiences with your own life.

Before you start using personal experiences with new texts, you should understand Using Prior Knowledge to Start Reading. You also need to know about Connect New Experiences Thru Shared Writing to build your connection skills.

This topic connects to many other reading skills. You will use these connections for Retelling Stories With Key Details and Using Pictures To Describe Stories. Your personal experiences also help with Making Inferences Using Stated Info.

As you get better at this skill, you will learn Activating Prior Knowledge Text Connections and Making Connections Linking Text Experience. These skills help you become an even stronger reader who can understand more complex stories.