Engage children in books and other texts with multiple layers of meaning.

Model, teach, and have students practice strategies for understanding big ideas.

Have children synthesize big ideas from related fiction and nonfiction texts.

• Have children synthesize big ideas from related fiction and nonfiction texts

• select books and/or other material (e.g., poems, songs, rhymes) that share similar or related big ideas. (e.g., Ants, Splat)

• read the first selection and discuss its big ideas. Then read the second, and do the same.

• later, have conversations about the big ideas in both selections, and have the children explore and discover the relationship by talking, writing and/or drawing about them.

• select books and/or other material (e.g., poems, articles, and documents) that share similar or related big ideas. (e.g., to come)

• read the first selection and discuss its big ideas. Then read the second, and do the same.

• later, have conversations about the big ideas in both selections, and have the children adopt and defend positions in either spoken or written form.