English Language Arts and Reading.6.6.A

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The student is expected to

describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected text;

TEKS Talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student respond to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.

As students meet in a book-club setting, have each member of the group share personal connections to the text. Require students to cite specific text that supports their connections.
 

Further Explanation

This assessment provides students the opportunity to demonstrate how they have interpreted the explicit and implied ideas expressed as they describe personal connections made while reading. Ideas can be shared orally or in writing.

When students describe personal connections to something read, heard, or viewed, they use details to demonstrate how they have interpreted the explicit and implied ideas expressed. Personal connections are students' reactions to an idea. Personal experience can, and often does, influence these reactions. Students should be encouraged to share their reactions orally or in writing.
connections that a reader makes between a piece of reading material and the reader's own experiences or life
a text that a student identifies and chooses to read for independent reading

Research

1. Liang, L. A., & Galda, L. (2009). Responding and comprehending: reading with delight and understanding. The Reading Teacher, 63(4), 330+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A219309596/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=5634eb30

Summary: Using the book Because of Winn-Dixie as their focal text, the authors describe the use of predicting and visualization exercises in the classroom. Students are asked to reflect on a personal situation in which they were new and consider how that felt and what happened. This reflection serves as a springboard for students to make predictions about what will happen in the story's narrative structure. The visualization exercise focuses on getting children to visualize images from poetry, and then illustrate those images. Although the article is targeted for primary grades, it can be scaffolded for older students. For example, students could illustrate a poem through digital art or photography.

2. Zuckerbrod, N. (2019, Spring). The power of stories: Develop social-emotional skills and empathy using fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Scholastic Teacher, 128(3), 45+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A580773753/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=b300f1ba

Summary: The author shows the impact that fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have on students in grades 3 through 6, especially when teachers choose texts that resonate with students. Teacher recommendations are provided, along with stories of how teachers help students make the connection from texts to personal experience and to the experiences of others.

3. Maine, F. (2013). How children talk together to make meaning from texts: A dialogic perspective on reading comprehension strategies. Literacy, 47(3), 150–156. doi: 10.1111/lit.12010

Summary: Multiple studies have revealed that reading comprehension increases when reading includes text and images, such as with visuals or in a multimodal format. This study expands the literature related to reading comprehension by examining student talk and the ways in which students engage inter-mental and intra-mental reading processes. The findings reveal that student talk allows students to question the reading and draw multiple interpretations of the meaning. Students are both creative and open to hypothetical scenarios. The article includes a discussion on the benefits of using this strategy, such as student engagement, creative dialogue and innovation.