Synthesis is a process involving other comprehension strategies. It is one of the most complex readings skills because readers have to be able to take the information that they learned from reading a text and combine it with their background knowledge in order to create a new understanding. In other words, they weave together what they read and their own ideas into new complete thoughts. As we synthesize, we deepen our understanding of topics, concepts, or ideas and expand our personal understanding of our own lives and those of others. Synthesizing allows readers to change their thinking as they read. Students are working to put together all of the comprehension strategies they have learned to form thoughts, opinions and conclusions. Synthesizing can be difficult because it involves so many pieces. As we learned about the skill of synthesizing, we immersed ourselves in quality mentor texts with many wonderful examples. I read the texts out loud and shared my own thinking as we discussed the students’ thinking at the same time. We practiced with one another and participated in numerous learning activities. The more they think about the process as they read, the better they synthesize and the easier it becomes!