Text to Self Lesson Plan 2 - The Reading Lady

Making Connections Text to Self

Strategies That Work
Submitted by Ann Tillotson

Objective:

Students will learn how making connections will help them to understand and comprehend the text.
Students will practice being able to explain how the connection helped them understand the text.

Materials: Book Franklin and the Thunderstorm by Paulette Bourgeois.

Self to Text Post-It Notes on pages teacher has made a connection with.
Self to Text Poster to record name of book. This will be used throughout year to allow children to add book titles they have read and made Text to Self connections.
Other Franklin books to share.

Introduction: Remind the children of what text means - words in books, magazines, poems etc. Explain that you are going to share how the text in Franklin and the Thunderstorm helped you to make some connections or remember some similar experiences.

Children will be on the rug in the reading area seated in front of easel. Teacher will share Strategies poster which features Text to Self graphics, Text to Text and Text to World. Teacher will explain that todays lesson will be on Text to Self but we will talk about other strategies when reading this book.

Text to Self helps me think of an experience in my own life. Read the book Franklin and the Thunderstorm to the students. Stop at first Post-It Note labeled Text to Self (a book with arrow pointing to stick person).

Even though I have made a Text to World Connection when Foxes mother told the animals to get out of the tree house I will skip this for now and stop at this text to make a Text to Self connection: "Lightning!" shrieked Franklin. He trembled. KA-BOOM! "Thunder!" he screamed. "It's okay, Franklin," said his friends. We’re safe here." But Franklin had crawled deep inside his shell. I will share how scared I used to get when I knew there was a thunderstorm coming and how when I heard thunder or saw lightning I would hide in a closet. So I understood how scared Franklin was and knew that no matter what his friends said, Franklin would not come out until he knew storm was over.

I will read the rest of the story and then go back to make two more connections: Text to World for part when Foxes mother said it was dangerous to be in a tree in a thunderstorm. I knew that so knew right off what the author was going to have the mother say when she heard the animal friends were all up in the tree house.

I will make another Text to World connection when the animal friends explain what causes thunder and lightning. I finally learned that thunder was just hot and cold air clashing and lightning can be very dangerous as it is an electrical spark, but if you are safe inside you do not have to be scared.

Finally I will share a Text to Text connection as each animal shared their idea of what thunder and lightning was, but finally someone explained that Mr. Owl explained what really caused them. I knew from reading Franklin Goes To School and Franklin’s New Friend that Mr. Owl was their teacher.

At this time I might make one more connection of hearing the saying, "Wise as an owl." Owls are often portrayed as being very smart so I would know when I heard each animal’s explanation of what thunder and lightning is that I probably could believe Owl.

To end this lesson, I would write the title of the book on the Text to Self Chart and put my initials. I would tell the children that when we read a book during Shared Reading or they read a book for Guided Reading and they make a Text to Self connection that helped them to understand the text, then they could add that Title to this chart and put their initials beside it.

Assessment: After we have had many guided opportunities to make Text to Self connections and I have modeled the Making Text to Self Connections T-Chart, I will have students do this during Independent Reading. I will also use the making Connections Drop-in Conference Sheet.