Reading Comrehension Strategies

Learning about Fact and Opinion

Learning how to tell fact vs. opinion is not only a skill that will serve students across the curriculum and on standardized tests, but also throughout their lives. This is especially true in an information-driven world where anyone can disseminate “facts” via tweets, Wikipedia entries or blog posts. 

With that in mind, the children collected facts they learned after reading grade level non fiction texts and  then wrote  their opinions on the topic. We discussed how  to identify opinions by learning about “trigger” words such as believe, best, think, feel, always and never.

Arthur/PBS Fact vs. Opinion Online Game 

Making Connections: Text-to-self, Text-to-text, Text-to-world

 

Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. Students comprehend better when they make different kind of connections.

• Text-to-self
• Text-to-text
• Text-to-world

Text-to-self connections are between a piece of reading material and the reader’s own experiences or life. An example of a text-to-self connection might be, "This story reminds me of a vacation we took to my grandfather’s farm."
Text-to-text connections are made when readers are reminded of other things that they have read, other books by the same author, stories from a similar genre, or perhaps on the same topic. Readers gain insight during reading by thinking about how the information they are reading connects to other familiar text. “This character has the same problem that I read about in a story last year,” would be an example of a text-to-text connection.
Text-to-world connections are the larger connections that a reader brings to a reading situation. We all have ideas about how the world works that goes far beyond our own personal experiences. We learn about things through television, movies, magazines, and newspapers. Often it is the text-to-world connections that teachers are trying to enhance when they teach lessons in science, social studies, and literature. An example of a text-to-world connection would be when a reader says, "I saw a program on television that talked about things described in this article."

Below are some examples of connecting statements for you to use to prompt discussion with your child.
 
This part reminds me of....
I felt like...(character) when I....
If that happened to me I would....
This book reminds me of...(another text) because....
I can relate to...(part of text) because one time....
Something similar happened to me when....
 
Below are some examples of questions that can be used to help make connections:
 
Text-to-self:
What does this remind you of?
What is this similar to your life?
How is this different from your life?
Has something like this ever happened to you?
What were your feelings when you read this?
Text-to-text:
What does this remind you of in another book you’ve read?
How is this text similar to other things you’ve read?
How is this different from other books you’ve read?
Have you read about something like this before?
Text-to-world:
What does this remind you of in the real world?
How is this text similar to things that happen in the real world?
How is this different from things that happen in the real world? 

 
Text Connections Online Game