Finding connections between ideas within a passage | Reading | Khan Academy

Hello readers. Today we're going to talk about making connections. So, I don't mean to brag, but I have at least one friend. I'm kind of a big deal! I have friends at work, friends from the schools I attended, friends in my apartment building, in my neighborhood, friends from places I used to live. Each friend is connected to me in some way. Maybe we met in the elevator, or on the train, or at the community garden.

In some cases, I introduced my friends, and now they're friends with each other and even hang out without me. Each friend is connected to me or to each other in a different way and for a different reason. Just in the way that people can be friends with each other, ideas can be friends with each other too. Understanding how ideas in a text connect to each other and to the topic of the text will help me understand what I'm reading.

Good readers make connections between ideas in a text. When I look at a passage, I ask myself, what do all these sentences have in common? How are they connected? Let's explain with a brief passage about building ships. Long ago, shipbuilders used iron nails and bolts because iron was easy to find. They soon learned the disadvantages of using this metal on a boat. Iron quickly rusts and decays, especially near the salty ocean. They switched to using brass, which lasts longer.

I want to use this paragraph to describe three common ways authors show connections: comparison, cause and effect, and sequence. Comparison: what's the same or different between two ideas? So, what's similar between brass and iron is one example. We can say, okay, both of these are metals and both were used in shipbuilding. Now, what's different between them? Well, iron rusts quickly in the ocean, and it does so faster than brass, right? Brass lasts longer.

Now let's talk about cause and effect. How does one event or idea cause another event or idea? Well, what happens when you put a ship with iron bolts into salt water? It rusts and decays. The ocean causes the iron to corrode and rust. So, what did shipbuilders do as a result? They switched to using brass.

And finally, sequence: what order did things happen in? Now the paragraph begins with long ago and talks about iron before it talks about brass. It then describes how shipbuilders switched to brass, so iron came first in the sequence.

So, when I read this passage on shipbuilding, even though it is very short, I'm able to make a lot of connections between ideas. Doing this deepened my understanding and helps me to become a better reader. Now, not every sentence or idea is connected to every other sentence or idea, just like not every single one of my friends is friends with all my other friends. And that's okay too!

Our goal is to think about how those sentences connect to the topic overall. Think about the big picture. Understanding the connections between sentences is one of many ways you can strengthen your skills as a reader. You can learn anything.

David out.