I thought I would share a few of my favorite books for teaching text-to-self connections, text-to-text connections and text-to-world connections:
When students are able to make connections with a book they find more meaning to the story. They are able to better connect with the characters and the plot and really understand what is happening. While we must reel our young learners in (sometimes they get off track while making connections) I still believe this concept is very important for our students to learn and feel comfortable with.
No, David! By David Shannon
This book is an obvious favorite for young students and they can ALL relate! As I read this story I make sure to check in with my students and their connections and ask them how their connections help them understand the story better. This book also has some great stopping points for inferring!
The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
Most students can relate to a time in their life where they had a LOT of family members over their house and how it felt. As with any text-to-self connections I try to make them meaningful and bring students back to the text by asking them how their connections helped them better understate what was happening in the story.
Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola and Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
Both of these books have main characters that must overcome some sort of adversity and students can often relate to the struggles each character faces in these stories. We talk a bit about how Oliver Button changes through the story and after reading Amazing Grace we compare the two main characters’ journeys. I love to use them when making text-to-text connections!
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry:
I focus a lot on author’s purpose when we read this book. I want my students to try and figure out WHY Lynne Cherry wrote this book and what it could be telling us about our world that we live in. My young, first graders always amaze me with their insightful thoughts on protecting the forests and the trees.
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss:
Another great read for text-to-world connections. My students are able to think of the relationship between our world and how we treat it just like in the story.
You can grab the above books here:
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I have also made read aloud lessons and response sheets for ALL the above books and more that you can find by clicking the image below if you are interested:
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Thank you!