When students make a connections with the books they read, their understanding, comprehension, and recall of the information increases.

Normally when I think of students make connections with stories, I focus on either a connection with the author or relating something that has happened to them to something that happens in the story (event). A teacher may be able to help students make connections with the author using blogs, websites, or even skype. Students could do some type of writing or art activity to express personal connections to stories possibly using a blog or something like webspiration.

Reading Kristin’s Blog: Blogging with Afghanistan got me thinking about another type of connection that teachers can help provide for students using technology tools . . . a connection to the setting. A little background to her blog: In the past, her class read a story and posted discussion on a blog. The story was set in Afghanistan. A person who lives in Afghanistan read her blog and contacted her. He became her “friend” and offered to help out when she did the story the next year. . . it is all about making connections

A teacher could build background knowledge about the setting of a story by having students research general information about the area online, maybe look at pictures, or take a Google Earth trip. Those students would know a little more about the setting than before, but imagine how that level of knowledge would change if students could “talk” to someone actually in that area and ask questions not only about the geography/landforms but also about the culture.
The experiences of these students has the potential to greatly influence their understanding of the story.

Think about all the technology tools we have available to make it possible to make these connections to enhance student learning: skype, blogs, wikis, videos, pictures, voicethread, twitter . . .

So you don’t have a friend or connection in the area of study or setting of the book . . . chances are that posting on Twitter could prove to be beneficial . . . chances are somebody knows somebody who knows somebody . . . it is all about making connections.

Global Studies involves learning so much more by making connections rather than just reading or research from a book or online.

It can be hard to keep a child motivated about reading when vacation arrives. Many kids drop the books when school ends and don’t pick them up again until school begins again. That can be detrimental to the learning process! Vacation is a wonderful time to help children extend their reading experiences. There are numerous books that can be used in conjunction with your travels. This is a great way to help children make connections between their world and the print world. When a child learns to make connections between what they read and what is happening in their world they learn a very important strategy in reading. Making personal connections to text, connections between text and happenings in the world and connections between one text and another text a child has read are very important methods for a child to become better readers. Reading is not decoding of words. Reading is understanding the words that have been decoded and finding some meaning in them!

The book Using Math Outdoors by author Amy Rauen and book publisher Weekly Reader is a math counting book that is great to read and then follow-up with a fun day on the beach imitating the activities from the book. The children in the book write numbers in the sand, count sea shells and rocks, and do some math. For the older kids there are several wonderful books. Weekly Reader has a book called Deep Sea Fishing by William David Thomas. It’s a beautifully well written picture book that will be a big hit with the kids before they hit the beach. The book details the different types of fishing, fishermen and the different fish that are caught in various areas around the world. Seasquirt Publications gives us The One Sea, Voices from the Deep by David Pierce Hughes. Learn about the Albatross, Crab and Sea Urchin and read about the Coral Reef, Penguins, the Abyss and more. If staying home is your plan for summer vacation then Illumination Arts Publishing has the book. Just Imagine by Thompson and Schultz is a beautifully detailed picture book that takes children to space, sailing on the ocean, and to dinner with kings and queens, anywhere their own imagination can guide them. Each of these books and many more are available to be read online over and over again at Big Universe, or the books can be purchased or found at your library.

As the kids gather their own memories of summer have them write their own book. On Big Universe  kids, teachers, anyone, can use some powerful authoring tools to create, print and even publish their own book. Pictures can be imported or you can use any of the almost 7000 clipart pictures that are already available on the site. When the teacher asks, “What did you do on your summer vacation?” why not hand her a copy of your book. That would be impressive!

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