Synthesizing

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.