Many times the movies that we choose to see interest us based on a memory, a personal situation, or even someone we know. Humans go through life seeking connections; consequently, it only makes sense that children need to feel connected to what they are reading.

Encourage students to get personal with a text, using one or all of the following techniques:

• Have students evaluate a passage’s subject. Does the topic seem familiar?
• Have students evaluate a story’s characters. Do the people seem familiar?
• Encourage students to develop their own evaluations of genres, authors’ writing styles, and what they liked or disliked about similar works. (These other works could be movies, television shows, games, and other media content.)
• Students should record similarities between the current passage and previous works they have encountered.
• Students should record similarities between the current passage and their own life experiences.