One time I read ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read the book front to back, every word. And as soon as I closed the book, I realised that I had no idea what I had just read. This is because there is a difference between reading the words on the page and activating our thinking brains (in other words: understanding and thinking about the story).
This year our class is working on becoming active readers. To do this, we focus on “making connections.” A connection is when a story reminds us of something. It is a way to activate our thinking brains while our reading brains are decoding the words on the page. And it is not easy, especially when you only have 9 years of stories to draw on.
We explore three types of connections:
- Text to Self
- Text to Text (including movies, songs and other media)
- Text to World
Last week we read Chrysanthemum together (one of my favourites) and made connections to that story. Next week we will read another picture book and work on making even deeper connections: the difference between “I like ketchup on my mac n’ cheese too!” and “I also get upset sometimes and want comforting things so I can feel better.” 
We are becoming active readers who make connections, visualise, infer, and ask juicy questions about the stories we read.
Here are some of the juicy questions asked in this week’s lit circle groups (Lions, Tigers, Bears, and Oh Mys) about Chrysanthemum:
- Victoria was the main person to make fun of Chrysanthemum’s name. Why did Rita and Jo follow her?
- What do you think about Mrs. Chud’s reaction to Victoria? (Mrs. Chud said “Thank you for sharing, Victoria” everytime Victoria said something rude about Chrysanthemum’s name).
Students had very interesting answers. See what your child thinks!