Making Text-to-Self ConnectionsActivities & Teaching Strategies
Active learning helps young children build bridges between stories and their own lives by engaging multiple senses. When they move, draw, and talk, connections become vivid and memorable for Junior Infants.
Learning Objectives
- 1Compare personal experiences to events or character actions in a story.
- 2Explain how a character's feelings in a story are similar to their own feelings.
- 3Predict how they would act in a story situation based on personal experiences.
- 4Identify story elements that mirror their own lives.
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Pair Draw: Story Connections
Read a picture book aloud. In pairs, children draw one event from the story that reminds them of their life and label feelings involved. Pairs share drawings with the class, with teacher prompting comparisons.
Prepare & details
Has anything like what happened in this story ever happened to you?
Facilitation Tip: During Pair Draw, sit with pairs to gently steer conversations toward specific story moments before asking for personal links.
Setup: Standard classroom seating; students turn to a neighbor
Materials: Discussion prompt (projected or printed), Optional: recording sheet for pairs
Feeling Circle: Character Matches
After a story, sit in a circle. Pass a soft toy; each child says or acts a feeling the character had that they feel too, like happy or sad. Teacher models with exaggeration for clarity.
Prepare & details
How does this character feel the same way as you sometimes feel?
Facilitation Tip: In Feeling Circle, model matching your own emotion to the character’s before inviting students to share.
Setup: Standard classroom seating; students turn to a neighbor
Materials: Discussion prompt (projected or printed), Optional: recording sheet for pairs
What If Role-Play: My Choice
Select key story moments. In small groups, children take turns acting what they would do if they were the character, using props like hats or scarves. Groups perform one for the class.
Prepare & details
What would you do if you were a character in this story?
Facilitation Tip: For What If Role-Play, provide props so children can physically act out their choices and connections.
Setup: Standard classroom seating; students turn to a neighbor
Materials: Discussion prompt (projected or printed), Optional: recording sheet for pairs
Connection Collage: Personal Links
Provide story images cutouts and personal photos or drawings. Individually, children glue matches between story parts and their experiences onto paper. Display collages for a gallery walk.
Prepare & details
Has anything like what happened in this story ever happened to you?
Facilitation Tip: With Connection Collage, give clear examples of how to cut and paste personal photos or drawings alongside story images.
Setup: Standard classroom seating; students turn to a neighbor
Materials: Discussion prompt (projected or printed), Optional: recording sheet for pairs
Teaching This Topic
Start with highly relatable stories about everyday emotions, as these make text-to-self connections most accessible. Avoid abstract stories until children show consistent success with concrete ones. Research shows that children this age connect best when guided step-by-step through questioning and modeling, so provide sentence starters like 'This reminds me of...' to scaffold their thinking.
What to Expect
Successful learning looks like children confidently sharing personal stories that mirror story events or emotions. They should use phrases like 'This reminds me of...' or 'I felt like that when...' without prompting.
These activities are a starting point. A full mission is the experience.
- Complete facilitation script with teacher dialogue
- Printable student materials, ready for class
- Differentiation strategies for every learner
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
Common MisconceptionDuring Pair Draw, watch for children who say stories are 'just pretend' and do not attempt to link to their lives.
What to Teach Instead
Redirect by asking, 'Can you think of a time when you felt excited like the character? Draw it next to the character’s face.'
Common MisconceptionDuring Feeling Circle, watch for children who insist the character’s feelings are 'not real feelings'.
What to Teach Instead
Model matching your own face to the character’s and say, 'Look at how we both look scared. Can you show me when you felt scared like this?'
Common MisconceptionDuring What If Role-Play, watch for children who say the story events 'never happen to me'.
What to Teach Instead
Prompt with, 'What if this happened to you tomorrow? How would you feel? Show me with your face and body.'
Assessment Ideas
After Pair Draw, ask each pair: 'What did you draw that reminds you of the story? Tell your partner about a time that happened to you.' Listen for personal anecdotes that mirror story events or emotions.
During Feeling Circle, observe students as they match emotions. Note which children can articulate a personal experience that matches the character’s feeling without prompting.
After Connection Collage, collect each child’s collage and ask them to point to one picture that shows a connection. Ask, 'How is this like something that happened to you?' and note whether they can explain the link.
Extensions & Scaffolding
- Challenge early finishers in Pair Draw to find two connections instead of one.
- Scaffolding for Connection Collage: offer pre-cut personal images or sentence strips with simple words like 'happy' or 'scared' to support struggling students.
- Deeper exploration: After What If Role-Play, ask students to dictate a short story about their character’s choice and their own similar choice to a scribe or audio recorder.
Key Vocabulary
| Connection | Linking something in a story to something in your own life or feelings. |
| Experience | Something that happens to you or that you do in real life. |
| Feeling | How you feel inside, like happy, sad, angry, or excited. |
| Character | A person or animal in a story. |
Suggested Methodologies
Planning templates for Foundations of Language and Literacy
More in Reading Pictures and Stories
Predicting and Inferring
Using clues from covers and titles to make logical guesses about story events.
3 methodologies
Who and Where: Characters and Places
Exploring who is in the story and where it takes place to deepen understanding of narrative structure.
3 methodologies
Different Kinds of Books
Learning to navigate non-fiction texts to find facts and answer questions about the real world.
3 methodologies
What Happened in the Story?
Students learn to identify the central message of a story or text and supporting details.
3 methodologies
Stories Have a Beginning, Middle, and End
Students will analyse complex narrative structures, including rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, and explore plot devices such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and subplots.
3 methodologies
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