Connection

In second grade and again this year, Cooper has been encouraged to make text-to-text and text-to-self connections when reading.

When he works in his reading journal, he'll often write a note about how something in the book he's reading reminds him of something he's read before or something that's happened in his life. (If a story mentions ice cream, without a doubt Cooper will write about our summer 2007 vacation to Mackinac Island. We ate ice cream at least once a day.)

This afternoon Cooper found two worms on the back porch -- one much longer than the other. He called the bigger one the daddy and the smaller one the son.

The bigger one had already died. The smaller one was still alive.

Cooper came into the house for a plastic cup to cover up the daddy.

As he told Aunt Ami and me about the worms and how sad he was, he interrupted himself.

"This is a life-to-self connection."