Intertextual Connections in Classroom Reading Experiences

Schools across the country are striving to meet the tenets of the No Child Left Behind Act that holds states, districts, and schools accountable for student achievement, and requires children to be proficient readers by the end of third grade. This legislation also noted that children who read well in the early grades are far more successful in later years, and those who fall behind often stay behind when it comes to academic achievement. Recognizing the importance of effectively teaching and scaffolding developing readers, this study explores the intertextual connections that second grade students made during a variety of classroom reading experiences and the important role of the teacher and the classroom discourse community in making meaning from texts. Intertextuality is a construct that includes how readers make inferences, generalizations, and interrelate ideas between various source texts: personal experiences, literature, and other media sources. The kinds of connections made by students are described and the ways these connections were manifested either spontaneously by the student or prompted through explicit questioning are considered for classroom practice.