Good Reader's Habit #6: Synthesis

My son asked me what I was writing about, and when I told him "Synthesis," he was convinced this had something to do with Star Wars (doesn't everything?).

Sorry, kiddo.

Synthesis is the coming together of all the other habits: the connecting, the visualizing, the questioning and predicting, the inferring, and the determining of importance. Synthesis is when you've done all those things and they've linked together in your brain to give you whole new ideas.

Notice in the image above how the colors, by overlapping, create new colors. In effect, synthesis is growing your brain, creating new scaffolds on which to hang still more information. It's the moment when it all comes together, makes sense, crystallizes, gels -- your A-Ha! moment. The a-ha moment can be monumental (you want to move to Ethiopia and help people build wells for clean water) or very small (you realize that you would have handled the situation differently). It can be an observation about human (or non-human) behavior, a observation about patterns, a generalization about how similar situations might play out, or a lesson that you draw from the story. It may simply make you want to rush out and tell other people about the book. Synthesis is a varied as the people experiencing it.


Can it be taught? Kind of. You can't really force someone to have a realization, an a-ha moment. But, it can be encouraged and it can be modeled. By helping kids develop the other six habits, you increase their chances of achieving the a-ha moment. And when you're reading something to them, particularly something longer and more complex, modeling your own a-ha moment is helpful. It tells kids that this is what they're shooting for, this is desirable behavior, a desirable result, of reading.

When you have an a-ha moment while reading, talk through it with your child. Explain what led up to your realization. One way to spark conversation that might lead to an a-ha moment is to have your child think about what the story makes them want to do...or what it makes them think about...or what has changed in the way they see themselves or the world.

Kids express synthesis differently. My 8-year old has an a-ha moment with virtually every book she reads: The Mysterious Benedict Society had her strapping a pail to her waist and climbing trees for 2 weeks straight. Just this week she read ER Vets and now she wants to be a veterinarian. She's been giving the dog physicals all week. My son, on the other hand, rarely has this kind of a-ha moment and if you asked him what he felt motivated to do after reading something, he'd tell you "Nothing. Whatever." I am not overly concerned about this because a) he's 6, b) he's kind of private about his feelings, and c) he's not reading anything earth-shattering right now. I don't really expect him to draw great life inspiration from Captain Underpants.

Don't sweat it if you read something that doesn't have an a-ha moment -- not everything is going to rock your world and cause your brain to double in size. But do encourage reflection, do talk about what the story might make them want to do or what it makes them realize. And keep modeling your own motivations and realizations as you go along.

Good Reader's Habit #5 -- Determining Importance

Good readers, we now know, have habits that make them better at reading. They make connections, they visualize, they question and predict, and they make inferences about what they're reading. Today we're going to look at another habit: determining importance.

When we read, we need to have an idea of what's important in the story. At first, this isn't a critical need -- stories for very young children are simple and the focus of the story is usually clear. But as children get older, stories become more complex. They begin to have extensive detail, subplots, themes, symbolism...all that stuff that made you run screaming from English class in high school. But, if you teach your child how to determine what's important in the story, chances are you can keep the screaming to a minimum.

My 3rd grader recently had to read the opening chapters of Dear Austin, a book about the underground railroad, and pull out 3 important details. She had to do this without really knowing what was going to happen next in the book. In this sense, she was predicting, but in another sense the exercise forced her to examine how the author wrote to try to figure out if any weight was being given to particular details, details which might be central to the story.

In the first few chapters we learn that 1. Levi has been left behind when his family went to Oregon because he was ill. 2. His friend, Jupiter, is the son of former slaves. 3. Levi hates dancing. 4. Levi lives with a guardian, Miss Amelia. 5. Levi is often in trouble for boyish pranks. 6. Jupiter never speaks and that some people say he saw something terrible when he was a baby that scared the voice right out of him. 7. Levi has a friend named Possum. 8. Jupiter has a sister named Darcy who sings all the time.

Now we have to weigh that information. We know quite a bit about Levi and his life, but what qualifies as important? What's going to impact the story later on? Even without having read the book, you can guess from the above list that points 2 and 6 are likely to be important to the rest of the story. Partly we know this because we have wide experience with books --we know how a book is 'set up' and we can guess where it might be taking us. We gather clues from the back cover, from things our teacher or parent says, from the cover picture, and we use that to help filter and rank the details as they come in. Also, we can guess at their importance because the author devotes just a skosh more description to them than to the other pieces of information she gives us. And, those things seem the most likely ones that you could build a story around. We sense that there's a deeper mystery here to Jupiter's silence.



One way to thinkk about this is to consider which details you would include if you had to tell someone about a book. What details of the plot would you include? As soon as you can, even with picture books, get your child to re-tell you the story. This helps them with their ability to pull out the plot of the book. Keep doing this as the books get longer and more complex. Talk about the details of the book and try to figure out which might be most important to the story. Look at the cover, the back cover, the pictures in the book -- in picture books, the most important parts of the story are usually the ones that are illustrated. In a sense, you are determining importance backwards: you read the story and then decide what was critical. BUT, this is fine because it gives kids a picture of how books work, how details contribute to the overall story. Eventually, they'll develop a sense of which details are likely to be important and be able to predict with a fair amount of accuracy.


Determining importance is easy to do with a good writer. Good authors will often spend more time on important details -- describing a place or person very thoroughly -- if they're going to figure prominently later in the book. They tend to spend less time on minor characters and unimportant details. Also, they'll often repeat things that are important or contribute to the theme.

Now, this is where Bookivore has to tell you the ugly truth about books. Just because it's in a bookstore with a nice shiny cover and some good press on the back doesn't mean it's well written. The same is true of textbooks. In fact, a study about 20 years ago concluded that some of the worst written books out there, in terms of clarity, were textbooks.

If your child is struggling with determining importance, it may be that the writing really isn't that good. As a parent, it's your job to get in there and read it with them to help them figure out what's important. This is particularly true with textbooks. Never assume that because your district has purchased it that it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Learning to determine importance is a process; don't be discouraged if your child doesn't get it right away. My 3rd grader, who is a very proficient reader, was completely stumped by her Dear Austin assignment. But that's okay: it was a teaching moment. And now, when she encounters a similar assignment, she'll have that experience to fall back on.

Next Up: Good Reader's Habit #6: Synthesis

Good Reader's Habit #4: Inferring

Today you need to put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and pull out your magnifying glass. Or get out your CSI kit. Or your CSI Miami kit. Or whatever. Today we're going to play detective. Making Inferences is a lot like being a detective. It's also a lot like making predictions. However, when you make inferences you are making them about things in the present, rather than about the future. Another way to put it is to say that you are drawing conclusions about something.

We actually do this all the time, with varying degrees of accuracy. If you're in a conversation with someone talking about husbands and she suddenly bursts out crying, you may infer that something is wrong with her marriage. You may or may not be correct -- it could be something totally different -- but usually we try to fill in the gaps to better understand events or behaviors. The critical aspect here is that we follow some line of reasoning, some trail of evidence, that leads us to this conclusion.





Children make inferences, too. When they arrive home off the bus and Mom is standing in the doorway, hands on hips, tapping her foot and scowling, they may infer that she has discovered they left the lid off the hamster cage again and Mister Nibbles is loose in the house somewhere. Or they may infer that the principal called and she now knows about the gum incident on the bus that morning. Or they may just infer that she is mad about something and hope it's not something they've done.


Like detectives, we have to examine all the details and come up with a conclusion -- an inference -- that fits the evidence. The same is true in reading. Really good writers seldom tell you exactly how a character is feeling or explain the character's motives completely. We are left to figure all that out by ourselves, using the clues from descriptions and actions.


Wordless picture books rely almost entirely on making inferences to understand the story. Take Good Night Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman. The little gorilla is following after the zookeeper as he puts the animals to bed, but the little gorilla has gotten hold of the zookeeper's keys. What is he doing with the keys? The gorilla is pictured more than once with his finger to his lips, telling the audience "Shhh!" Why does he do this? Children can look at the pictures and infer 1) the little gorilla is letting the animals out, and 2) he doesn't want the zookeeper to know. It's up to the parent to pose the questions that allow the child to make those inferences. You are showing them both the evidence, and that there's something to be concluded from it.





Here's another scenario, one that's a little more complex in terms of the conclusions that can be drawn. In the book The Night Fairy Flory has been practicing her stinging spell. She has practiced it so much she is begining to change physically -- her chin and ears are growing sharper and pointier the more she practices. From this we can infer several things. Flory is practicing her stinging spell so often because she is afraid. She wants to protect herself, so she practices it a lot. We can also infer that growing pointy around the edges is probably not normal for a fairy. Flory is alone, except for Skuggle, who she knows would eat her if it weren't for her stinging ability. We can infer that she needs a friend who cares about her.




In picture books, draw your child's attention to the illustrations and ask questions to get at the characters' feelings or motives. In David Gets In Trouble, David tells his mother he wasn't responsible for taking the big bite out of the cake. However, since he's saying it with chocolate crumbs all over his face, get your child to make an inference: do you think he's telling the truth? (no) How can you tell he's lying? (he has crumbs all over him, he has cake on his mouth) Later, David fesses up. Ask: why do you think he told his mom the truth? (he felt bad, he felt guilty, he's sorry he lied, he's afraid she won't love him). Or just model the process for them: "Oh, David has crumbs all over his face -- I think he ate the cake and is telling a lie about it."

With older kids, stop the flow of the narrative and point out the evidence that leads you (and them, watching you) to a certain conclusion. "See, Edmund is trying to make himself seem more grown up, more like the older kids, by selling Lucy out. He's telling them Narnia was all a game -- lying about it -- so he can feel better and bigger than her." In about 3 seconds, you've traced the chain of evidence and drawn some conclusions about it.

This one, I'll freely admit, is trickier than the other habits because it requires a little more thought on the part of the parent. But it's a hugely important critical thinking skill that will serve them well in everything they read -- fiction and non-fiction alike.


Next Up: Good Reader's Habit #5: Determining Importance

Good Reader's Habit #3: Questioning and Predicting

You wake up in the morning, already a little late. The sky is cloudy, even a little dark. You don't have time to catch the weather forecast so you grab your umbrella -- it looks like rain and you may as well be prepared.

In your head, you've just engaged in two behaviors that good readers often exhibit: questioning and predicting. You are wondering what the weather will be like, then you predict it might rain and prepare accordingly. This sort of thing is automatic -- you barely register it as conscious thought -- but some readers need a little push to engage in similar activities while they read.
I should say that technically, questioning and predicting are two separate habits, but they are closely linked, so I am including them together. Questioning is just that -- the reader poses questions about the text. The questions may be about anything: why is the character doing that? How fast can a whitetail deer run? What is behind the black door? Is the river going to flood? What does honeycomb feel like? How tall is Mt. Kilimanjaro?

Questions don't have to have set or specific answers; they're merely an indication that the reader is thinking more deeply about the text than just a surface read. Consider this: if your child is spending all of his or her time decoding the text (see the Quick Guide if you don't know what this means) then it's doubtful s/he is taking the time to think deeply about the content of the story. All his or her energy is going toward decoding and not toward comprehension. Questioning is a way to encourage that deeper thinking.



Somewhat similar is Predicting. Predicting is a way for the reader to become invested in the outcome of the story. As soon as your child makes a prediction about a story, s/he will immediately become more interested in finishing the story -- to see whether his or her prediction was correct. Good readers make lots of predictions, about both big and small things. Ever read a mystery novel? If you've ever thought "The parking garage attendant did it," or "It's going to be the sister-in-law," then you've engaged in predicting. And you can't wait to get to the end to see if you were right. And then you have to tell everyone you figured it out by the end of chapter 6.



It feels good when we predict correctly. Take the rain analogy from the beginning paragraph: if it doesn't rain, you'll shrug and say "well, at least I was prepared." but if it does rain, you'll think "HA! I knew it!" and you'll either be unbearably smug or quietly self-satisfied for the rest of the day.

Good readers make predictions about the story as they go along. Let's take one story and see how questioning and predicting might play out. Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis begins with a mystery. The Pevensie children have returned, they think, to Narnia, but nothing is familiar. The questions and predictions that follow cover the whole book, not just the opening mystery.


Questions: Where are the children? Why is everything unfamiliar? What has happened? Why is everyone afraid of the dwarves? How did Cair Paravel become an island? I wonder how hard it is to shoot a bow and arrow? I wonder what bear meat tastes like? What do dwarves really look like? Why does King Miraz want to kill Caspian? How will Caspian escape? What happened to Caspian's horse? Who is Dr. Cornelius really? Why can't anyone see Aslan but Lucy? How will she get them to follow her? Will the others ever see Aslan? I wonder if it would be scary to stand next to Aslan? What will they find in Aslan's How? What does a werewolf look like? Will the Penvensies go home to England?

Prediction: They are in Narnia, they just don't know it. Aslan is hiding from them because he's mad at them. They're going to find some bad guys in Aslan's How -- maybe some of Miraz's soldiers. Caspian's army will beat Miraz's. Susan is going to marry Prince Caspian. The Pevensies are going to stay in Narnia now.

This is just a short list -- and notice that the questioning list is much bigger and wider-ranging. Predictions are more specific and answerable.

Like any habit, this can be modeled by the parent. Find places in the text where you can ask questions -- remember, these can be anything; don't feel like you have to come up with something deep or profound, just roll with it. It's an expression of curiosity, not a doctoral dissertation. One of my all-time favorite questions which one of my kids asked one night when we were reading fairy tales was "What does porridge taste like?" It's all about curiosity. For predicting, just stopping periodically and asking "What do you think is going to happen?" is a good place to start. As you get comfortable with it, you can make your predicting questions more specific: "How do you think Frog will get Toad to wake up?" or "What do you think is wrong with Old Yeller?" or "Do you think Gregor is going to die at the end of Code of Claw?" The more you do it, the more skilled you will get at it, and the more you model it externally for your children, the more likely they will be to do it internally as they read.

Next Up: Good Reader's Habit #4: Inferring

Good Reader's Habit #2: Visualize

Whoa -- that's a little mind blowing, isn't it? But it has much to do with today's habit: visualizing as you read. So think of this as an inner eye.

Good readers, remember, are made, not born. Nurture is all, when it comes to reading. No one wakes up one morning, spontaneously able to read. And anyone can learn to read better. Kids are a blank slate here; you can mold their little brains into efficient, competent readers with only a few little tweaks in how you're doing things already.


Visualizing is simply picturing in your mind the events, settings and characters of a story as you read it. It's like showing a little movie in your head. Some kids do this very naturally, but it is easy enough to teach if you don't mind a little weirdness at the outset.

You, the parent, need to "think aloud" for the child and model the process of visualizing. You can't invite them into your head for popcorn and a flick, so you have to speak the movie to them, so they can see how it's done.


Visualizing doesn't become critical until children move away from picture books. In picture books, the visualizing is done for them. Every page visually represents the story for them. You can, however, use picture books to show how the action, characters and settings are reflected in the artwork. "Look, there's Mudge shaking all the water off his coat! Oh, now Henry is really wet!. Henry sure doesn't look happy." or "Oh look, there's the puffy white circle on Henry's hand. That's where the bee stung him. That sure looks like it hurts!" This also teaches kids to look at the pictures for cues and clues about the story. When they begin reading independently, they will naturally look to the pictures to help them comprehend the text.

Later, though, the pictures become few and far between. That's when true visualization has to step in and provide a clear inner picture of what's going on.

When I was reading How to Eat Fried Worms to my 6 year old, we read a scene in which the main character's mother makes a worm sundae. We took a minute to "build" the sundae in our minds -- first the ice cream scoops, then the marshmallow sauce, then the whipped cream, then the cherries on top, and on either end, the plump, fleshy head and tail of a nightcrawler sticking out. My son scrinched up his face and shuddered. It was sooooo gross! He had a very clear, mental image of that sundae, complete with the worm and that is good practice for when he has to picture something more complex, like the encounter between Harry Potter and the giant spiders in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or the "confession" scene from The Scarlet Letter, or the living arrangements inside a Yurt, or the true nastiness of the winter at Valley Forge, or whatever -- the applications are endless.

It feels weird, at first, to stop the reading and talk through a mental image with your child. But it will feel more natural with a little practice. Don't feel like you have to do it for every facet of every book. Choose events or characters or settings that seem important to the story, or particularly colorful and start there. Or if something strikes you as particularly beautiful, try that. Or pick something that's unclear and work on picturing it together -- that's what good readers do when they aren't quite sure about something they've read; they go back and re-visualize it so they've got it clear in their heads. I think it's particularly helpful to take something unclear to you, the parent, and let your child listen to you talk through your visualizing process. It makes the point that everyone runs into reading snags from time to time, and here's one way to get out of them.

Visualizing dovetails nicely with Making Connections; it's easy to say something like "remember when we went to the zoo and the lions were out? I can just picture Aslan stalking around so silently, like that big lion we saw. Remember how big his teeth were? Can you just picture how much bigger Aslan's teeth must be?"

Next Up: Questioning and Predicting

Good Reader's Habit #1: Making Connections

Good readers are made, not born.

Their parents read to them often, for longer periods of time, starting at an early age. They have access to children's books and magazines. They often have a wider experience with different types of print media. And they all display certain habits as they read; habits that increase their ability to understand and apply the text.

These habits, too, are learned. They may learn them from their teachers -- many schools teach these habits now as a matter of course. But the habits aren't so highly specialized that a parent can't model them at home. And this is the key: if you model the habits for your child, your child will learn to internalize them and will rely on them all his or her life to help deconstruct and understand text.

The first habit that good readers exhibit is Making Connections. This simply means that the reader finds a point of relationship between what s/he is reading now and something s/he experienced earlier.

Connections can be further broken down by type:

Text to Text: something the child reads reminds him of something he read or saw in another book, article or story, or an audio or video edition of a story.

My 3 year old and I were reading the book Marshmallow last night, which is a story about a cat and a bunny. In it, there's a picture of the cat curled up in a cardboard box. I pointed out to her that he looked just like the cat in another book of hers called Ginger. "Yeah!" she agreed. Connection made.

Text to Self: something the child reads reminds her of a previous personal experience. This can be anything -- a character that reminds her of someone she knows, a setting she has visited (or that is similar to one she has visited), a topic that reminds her of something she's done or seen.

My 6 year old read a book called Daniel's Mystery Egg, in which the egg turns out to be a lizard. When he saw the final illustration, my son commented that this lizard didn't look at all like his cousin's lizard. He was making a connection with his personal experience of lizards and at the same time widening his understanding of what a lizard can look like.

Text to World: this is similar to text-to-self, except that the child is reminded of something in the wider world, not just his personal experiences. This can include settings, themes or messages, or events.

My 8 year old just finished a report on Coretta Scott King and is now very aware of civil rights. When she read a story about South Africa that mentioned apartheid, she was able to make a connection between apartheid and the American civil rights struggle. Her understanding of both concepts was enhanced.

Connections are very important, and some children are more adept at making them than others. My oldest is constantly saying "I have a connection to that..." to the point that it drives us bananas. However, she is a phenomenally competent reader and her ability to see connections to herself, other texts and the world is part of what makes her so successful. Other children need to have this habit modeled for them. My 3 year old didn't immediately see the similarity between the two cats in her books, but I pointed it out to her and made sure we read Ginger again the next night and pointed out the connection again, this time in reverse: "Doesn't Ginger in the box remind you of Oliver from Marshmallow?"

This may feel a little funny at first, but it gets easier and if you're a good reader yourself, it's probably something you're doing in your head anyway. You just need to do it out loud for your child so they can see it being done. "That basement is really dark and creepy, just like Grandma's. That puppy reminds me of the neighbor's dog -- do you remember when she was small? Hey, they have really tall trees out back just like we do! Boy, she sure asks a lot of questions, just like you do!" The connections don't have to be earth-shattering; they're just connections -- places where you can latch on to the story a little better.

Alternatively, you can do this with an older child by encouraging them to find their own connections: "What does this remind you of? Have you ever done anything like that? Who else do you know that tells jokes like that? That's really different from our vacation, but maybe you can think of a few things that are similar. I'm trying to remember if I've ever had to solve a mystery. Have you ever had to solve a mystery?"

You can start this at any age, but it's going to be easier with younger children as you read with them together more than you do with older kids. That being said, though, I am a firm believer in reading aloud to kids until they won't let you do it anymore. Even my 8-year old, who doesn't really need me to read to her at all, still listens to me read and I take those opportunities to reinforce the habits that have made her a good reader already.

Next Up: Good Readers' Habit #2: Visualizing