Connection Stems give students the language (and a reminder) to support their understanding by tying new learning to what they know about themselves and their world.
Connection Stems
Venn Diagram, 3 Circles
Students use this graphic organizer to describe similarities and differences between three objects or ideas.
Exit Slips
This printout provides prompts that help students reflect on and process new information and think critically, and offers teachers the opportunity to differentiate upcoming instruction based on these reflections.
Connection Web
Students use this printout to expand on connections they have made to a text and use those details to write essays or create projects about the text.
Double-Entry Journal
This printout helps students record ideas and situations from texts in one column, and their reactions in the second, thus making a connection between the text and themselves, another text, or the world.
Making Connections
In this strategy guide, you'll learn to model how students can make three different kinds of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world). Students then use this knowledge to find their own personal connections to a text.
Using the Think-Pair-Share Technique
In this strategy guide, you will learn how to organize students and classroom topics to encourage a high degree of classroom participation and assist students in developing a conceptual understanding of a topic through the use of the Think-Pair-Share technique.
Using the Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Technique
In this strategy guide, you will learn how to organize students and texts to allow for learning that meets the diverse needs of students but keeps student groups flexible.
Performing Literature to Promote Fluency and Comprehension
This study guide outlines three reading methods--Readers Theatre, choral reading, and performing poetry-- that can be used to promote fluency and comprehension.
Using Concept Circles to Develop Academic Vocabulary
In this guide, you will learn how to use the Concept Circles strategy to support vocabulary development and comprehension of complex text.
Using Word Walls to Develop and Maintain Academic Vocabulary
In this guide, you will learn how to use Word Walls to support vocabulary development and retention.
Using Disciplinary Facets to Deepen Academic Vocabulary Knowledge
In this guide, you will learn how to use the disciplinary facets strategy to support vocabulary development across contexts and academic disciplines.
Using Partner Talk to Strengthen Student Collaboration and Understanding
In this strategy guide, you'll learn about Partner Talk—a way to provide students with another learning opportunity to make learning their own through collaboration and discussion.
Inquiry Charts (I-Charts)
This guide introduces I-Charts, a strategy that enables students to generate meaningful questions about a topic and organize their writing.
Question the Author (QtA)
In this guide, you'll be introduced to a strategy that requires students to challenge their understanding and solidify their knowledge while reading a text.
Exit Slips
This strategy guide introduces the concept of using Exit Slips in the classroom to help students reflect on what they have learned and express what or how they are thinking about the new information. Exit Slips easily incorporate writing into the content area classroom and require students to think critically.
New Visions for Linking Literature and Mathematics
David and Phyllis Whitin offer K–6 teachers a wealth of ideas for integrating literature and mathematics.
Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classroom
Katie Wood Ray explains in practical terms the theoretical underpinnings of how elementary and middle school students learn to write from their reading.
Guided Comprehension: Making Connections Using a Double-Entry Journal
Based on the Guided Comprehension Model by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, this lesson helps students learn three types of connections (text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world) using a double-entry journal.
I Used My Own Words! Paraphrasing Informational Texts
Tell me about it in your own words! If students can paraphrase the information they have read, then you—and they—can be confident that they understand it.