Making the connections...

As a part of the programs we run for DS, we tell read him a lot of stories, from various books. The intent behind that is that as he hears the stories, he starts making "connections" between various characters, situations, settings etc to what he himself sees, feels and experiences in his own life on a daily basis. Basically, the intent is to get him to think and draw parallels. And then perhaps, he starts seeing the similarities and differences.

I've been thinking as to how to make this tool more effective. I do know that the connections are at different levels.

1. The first being physical, factual. Things that are tangible and are relating to the senses - can be seen, heard, touched, smelt etc.
2. The second is emotions - he is able to connect up to the emotions expressed by the characters in the stories.
3. The third level is abstract - he is able to reason a bit - as to why the character in the story felt the emotions in the way that s/he did. Kind of causal thinking
4. The last level being connection to self - experiential - as to how he is able to connect the characters/settings/situations to his own experiences and what he learns out of it.

Deriving from above categorization (my own, so dont sue me :) ), I have modeled the levels and making the connections (the ones labeled "recall through") as below (click on the picture to blow it up):



Today, we are kind of labeling the details in the stories to one of these levels, with an hope that we can effectively highlight some of it by weaving it in our activities and programs. The good news is, our DS is able to do 1 and 2 to some extent. Draw parallels at level 1 and to some extent in Level 2. The L3 and L4 are going to be challenging... I believe if he can start doing L3, then the L4 would naturally follow. Fun, happy and frustrating times ahead !!