Understanding and Explaining Text Connections
Understanding and Explaining Text Connections Objective: Students will learn to identify and explain how two or more events or ideas in a text are connected using specific details from the text.
Learning Objectives
- Identify two or more events or ideas in an informational text.
- Explain how these events or ideas are connected.
- Use details from the text to support explanations.
Materials Needed
- A short informational text or article suitable for a 7-year-old
- Paper and pencils
- Highlighters or colored pencils
Key Vocabulary
- Connection
- A relationship or link between two ideas or events.
- Detail
- A small piece of information that helps explain or support something.
- Text
- Any written material like a story or article.
Detailed Activities
Reading and Identifying Connections
- Read the chosen short informational text together with your child.
- Discuss the main events or ideas presented in the text.
- Ask your child to point out two events or ideas that seem related.
- Use highlighters or colored pencils to mark the parts of the text that show these connections.
Explaining Connections in Writing
- Help your child write a few sentences explaining how the two selected events or ideas are connected.
- Encourage them to include specific details from the text as evidence.
- Review the sentences together and discuss if the explanation clearly shows the connection.
Parent & Instructor Notes
- You do not need to be an expert in the subject; focus on guiding your child to think about how ideas relate.
- Ask open-ended questions like ‘How do you think these two ideas are linked?’ to encourage critical thinking.
- Be patient and provide examples from the text to help your child understand the task.
Assessment Questions
- Can you tell me two ideas or events from the text?
- How are these two ideas or events connected?
- What details from the text help you explain the connection?
Extension Ideas
- Create a simple graphic organizer (like a Venn diagram or flowchart) to visually map the connections between ideas.
- Read another short text and repeat the activity to practice identifying different types of connections.
- Draw a picture showing the two events or ideas and how they relate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Try breaking the text into smaller parts and discuss each part separately. Use guiding questions and provide examples to help them notice relationships.
While this lesson focuses on informational texts, you can practice similar skills with stories by discussing connections between events or characters.
Focus on asking questions and encouraging your child to explain their thinking. You can learn together by reading the text and exploring connections side by side.
Teacher’s Guide
Common Misconceptions:
- Students may think all events in a text are connected equally, so emphasize identifying specific connections.
- Children might confuse cause and effect with other types of connections; clarify different relationship types.
- Some students may rely on prior knowledge instead of details from the text; remind them to use text evidence.
Scaffolding Ideas:
For Struggling Students:
- Provide sentence starters to help frame explanations.
- Use shorter texts with clear, simple connections.
- Work together to highlight relevant details before writing.
For Advanced Students:
- Challenge them to find multiple connections and explain how they relate to the main idea.
- Ask for comparisons between different types of connections, such as cause-effect vs. sequence.
- Encourage writing a short paragraph with multiple evidence points.
Pacing Recommendations:
- Spend about 15 minutes reading and discussing the text to ensure understanding.
- Allow 20 minutes for identifying connections and writing explanations.
- Use the final 10 minutes to review answers, discuss, and provide feedback.
Standards
- 7.RI.8 — Explain how two or more events or ideas in a text are connected, using specific details from the text.
Printable Worksheet
Plan Your Own Lesson
Looking for a custom lesson plan? Try our Lesson Planning Generator — create standards-based plans for any topic, instantly!
Common Core Aligned Lesson Plans
Looking for another common core lesson? See all of the lesson plans here.
More Free Lesson Plans
We’re adding more every week! Check back soon or explore all our lesson plans here.
Leave a Reply