Connect Stories to Your Life and Make Reading Come Alive!

You will discover how to make connections between stories and your own life! When you read about characters doing things you've done or feeling ways you've felt, you are making connections between text and experience. This special skill helps you understand stories better and makes reading much more fun and meaningful.

A connection happens when something in a story reminds you of your own life. You might read about a character who feels nervous on the first day of school, just like you did. When you think "That's just like me!" while reading, you are making a connection.

These connections help you understand how characters feel because you remember feeling the same way. This makes stories come alive and helps you remember what you read much better.

When you read, ask yourself questions like "Have I ever done this?" or "How would I feel if this happened to me?" You can connect to characters' actions, feelings, or experiences that are similar to your own story character experiences.

For example, if you read about someone building a fort, you might remember building a blanket fort in your living room. These connections help you picture the story better and understand what the characters are going through.

Connection: When something in a story reminds you of your own life or experiences

Experience: Something that happened to you in real life that you remember

Text: All the words you read in a book or story

Link: To connect two things together, like connecting a story to your life

Character: The people or animals you read about in stories

Similar: When two things are alike or almost the same

Memory: Something special you remember from your own life

Remind: When something makes you think about something else

Start by thinking about your favorite activities, places you've been, or feelings you've had. When you read, look for characters who do similar things or feel similar ways. You can activate your prior knowledge to make text connections by remembering your own experiences.

Try keeping a reading journal where you write down connections you make. Draw pictures of times when a story reminded you of your own life. This practice will help you become better at making connections automatically while you read.

You already know how to use personal experience for new texts and how to make background knowledge predictions. Now you can use these skills to make even stronger connections between what you read and your own life experiences.

You've also learned about reading with purpose and connecting text elements together, which help you understand how different parts of stories work together with your own experiences.

Making text-to-experience connections works together with many other reading skills. You can use gathering information from experience and recalling personal experiences to find more connections while reading.

These connection skills prepare you for more advanced reading strategies like making connections from text to world and making inferences and text-based conclusions. You'll also use connections when you learn to answer questions using text evidence.

Connection-making also helps with making inferences using text evidence and analysis and response expressing thoughts about what you read.