Activate Your Schema!

     When you grab a book, you grab the book with a purpose.  No one grabs a book to simply read the words written inside the pages.  If you wanted to simply read words you would grab a dictionary instead.  You grab a book because you want to absorb yourself in the story.  In order to get lost in the story, you have to have an understanding of the story and a connection to the text.  The story has to mean something to you.  Teachers cannot simply teach children to read the words.  They have to teach children how to connect with their texts.  One way to do this is to activate their schemas! 
     In Chapter 5 of Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades, Debbie Miller discusses the idea of schema.  She describes schema as "all of the stuff that's already inside your head, like places you've been, things you've done, books you've read- all the experiences you've had that make who you are and what you know and believe to be true."  Students can use their schema, or background knowledge, while they are reading to make connections with the text and search for meaning.  
    Children can use their schema to make different connections with the text. One connection is text-to-self.  Text-to-self connections are connections between the story and the child's life. As the child reads or is read to, the text reminds them of previous experiences. Another type of connection is text-to-text.  Text-to-text connections are connections between the text the child is reading or hearing and a previous text or texts that the child has read or heard. A third type of connection is text-to-world.  Text-to-world connections are connections that the child makes between the text they are reading or hearing and real-world events and issues.
     Now you might be thinking "Duh, I make these connections all of the time!"  But for a child, making connections is not always so easy.  Reading to begin with is hard work.  If you add comprehension and meaning-making to it, they have a full plate.  Using their schema to make connections is a good habit that children should work on developing in elementary school.  The teacher can model how to use their schema during read alouds by demonstrating the different ways to connect to the text.  When children make connections to the text, not only are they deepening their comprehension of the text, but they are also beginning to find the meaning of the text.  Using their schema is just another tool children can have in their reading arsenal.