Connecting the Dots
to form the BIG Picture
For the month of January, our
strategy focus will be “synthesizing”.
Now, it really sounds like something you would do to make music, but
when applied to reading, it involves taking all the pieces you know and putting
them together with the new information you gather from reading. It is kind of like making cookies. You start the cookie dough with the things
you have to have like eggs, sugar, and flour and then add the ingredients which
will make the cookies unique. After you have been making cookies for awhile, we might change our minds and decide to make a different
variety then we always do, but we will still end up with fantastic
cookies.
When strong readers read, they
not only read the words on the page, but they listen to the “inner voice” that thinks
about the meaning of the story. Strong
readers use their background knowledge, make connections, and use other
experiences to form new ideas as they read.
Strong readers know the answers are not always found in the book but may
be formed in their own imaginations. A
reader who is synthesizing incorporates the details and inferences from a story
into their own ideas and opinions.
Synthesizing is creating
something new by bringing together many different ingredients and continually
changing the thinking depending on the new information gathered.
