Connecting Ideas in Texts
Describe connections between events, ideas, or concepts in informational text using time, sequence, cause-and-effect, and comparison language, and identify logical connections between sentences and paragraphs
What a learner can do afterwards
- Read a science text and identify three cause-and-effect relationships using signal words like 'because', 'as a result'
- Explain the sequence of steps in a technical procedure using time-order language ('first', 'next', 'finally')
- Describe how two paragraphs in a text are connected (e.g. comparison, cause/effect, or sequence)
1 · Read
When you follow a recipe or the steps of a science experiment, tiny words carry big clues. Words like 'because,' 'so,' and 'as a result' show cause and effect. Words like 'first,' 'next,' and 'finally' show time order. Words like 'however' and 'similarly' show a comparison.
Read this: 'The frost killed the crops. As a result, farmers lost money.' The frost is the cause. Losing money is the effect. The phrase 'as a result' connects them.
Comparison words do two jobs. 'Similarly' and 'also' tell you two things are alike. 'However' and 'in contrast' tell you two things are different. Both jobs are comparisons, because both hold two ideas side by side.
Not every pair of sentences is joined by cause and effect. Two sentences can sit next to each other and still not explain each other. 'Then' and 'later' only tell you which event came after. Ask yourself: did the first thing make the second thing happen? If it did, that is cause and effect.
Check the first sentence of a new paragraph. Words like 'in contrast' or 'because of this' often tell you how it connects to the paragraph before it.
Cause words, time words, and comparison words all show how ideas link across sentences and paragraphs. Before you call a link cause and effect, check that one idea really made the other happen.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.