Alexandra Mercer McCarren

Connecting to Literature

Connecting to Literature

How To Read With Your Child

By Alexandra Mercer

As parents, we are told to read with our children every day. What we are not told is how to read with them.  Here’s how.  Parents of children age infancy to high school should practice/monitor reading for meaning with their children.  Educators refer to this concept as “reading comprehension.”  Reading comprehension is best defined as one’s ability to understand what is read.  

One way to practice this skill is to make connections while reading.  Keene and Zimmerman’s Mosaic of Thought (1997) introduces three main connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world. When making these connections, the reader relates what is being read to something in their lives (text-to-self), something in another story (text-to-text), or something in the world (text-to-world).  This ability to “connect” gives relevance to the text. Rather than the text being a mere group of words strung together, it becomes an actual story that has meaning. 

This skill may be practiced at any age with any piece of writing. The younger your child, the earlier this concept will become second nature.  But it is never too late to start practicing.  Not only is making connections an important way to gain meaning from text, it is also a required skill found in standards that are assessed in classrooms across the nation as early as elementary school.  

The chart below lists three age levels across the top, each with a chosen picture book.  The different connections are listed down the left hand side of the chart.  An example of each connection relating to the specific book is listed in the boxes. Depending on the age of your child, check out the required book(s) from the library and use the chart as a guideline to practice making these connections. The younger your child, the more you will simply model how to make the connection.  The older your child, the more you can prompt with appropriate questions to allow connections to be made. 

After practicing with this chart, use it as a guideline to practice with other books.  With time, your child will begin to independently relate concepts in books to things in everyday life and in turn gain valuable meaning from what is read. As they enter middle school and high school, consider reading the same books as them and have "book talks" together covering these same connections at your favorite coffee shop.  This skill will be a lifelong skill that encourages lifelong learning!