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Great anchor chart on Making Predictions! | Anchor charts | Pinterest | Anchor charts, Chart and Anchor

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Great anchor chart on Making Predictions!

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Making predictions is something that proficient readers naturally do, even without knowing it. As soon as we pick up a new book on the library or book store shelf, we are making predictions and judgments about that book based on the cover as we thumb through the book. Today, I'm sharing 3 activities for making predictions in our 10-week Reading Comprehension Strategies Series.

*This post contains affiliate links.

In this post, you will find 3 different activities for making predictions {with a free printable pack which can be found at the end.} We will explore making simple predictions with
1- Pre-K/K, including pre-writers,
2- making and changing predictions with older kids {2nd through 5th grades} and
3- making predictions with nonfiction text.

Hang with me here because there's a lot of information!

Teaching Kids to Make Predictions

What is a prediction? Predictions are created by combining TWO things: 1- clues the author leaves for the reader, such as the words, pictures or text features and 2- what you know { your schema}.

Justifying predictions: When asking kids to make predictions {or use any other comprehension strategy}, I firmly believe it is important to ask kids WHY they think that. In their answer, I'm listening for them to connect to the text in some way and/or to use their schema or background knowledge.

Asking readers why takes them a step deeper into the comprehension strategy and gets them thinking about their thinking {remember this term from our introduction post: metacognition.} The printables in this pack will also ask kids to justify their answers.

Prepping a Book: It is important when you want to model a comprehension strategy that you look through the book ahead of time and think about how you want to share your thinking and what you want to say. I've been teaching comprehension for 12 years now and I still have to prep my thoughts {also known as a think aloud}. Doing it "on the fly" is never as effective as preparing ahead of time.

I even like to post sticky notes within the book where I want to stop and share my thoughts ahead of time. Otherwise, I'll probably forget. 🙂

Making Predictions with Young Readers

Making predictions is a simple place for young readers to begin their comprehension journey. This can easily be modeled and discussed as you read books together. While looking at the cover and reading the title together, you can share what you think the book will be about; or you can ask your child what he thinks. Before you turn the page in certain parts of the book, you can say, "I think ... will happen next because..." or "What do you think will happen next?" Even the youngest of readers can do this.

Just recently, we borrowed a copy of Elmer and Rose by David McKee from the library. This was a book we had never read before {which is important for this comprehension strategy.} The story line is set up to keep readers guessing as to what color Rose's herd is. I read to certain spot in the book that I had pre-planned, then I stopped. I asked my kids to predict what they thought would happen in the text, namely what color would Rose's herd be.

MBug {age 4} guessed Gray. When I asked her why, she said because that was the color of Elmer's herd.

NJoy {Kindergarten} guessed pink because Rose is pink. When I pressed a little further, he also mentioned that Rose said the gray elephants looked "strange", so her herd was probably not gray.

Making and Changing Predictions

As readers grow in their understanding of making predictions, it is important to help them see that we constantly monitor our predictions, tweaking ours or making new ones entirely if necessary. This is an activity I did with my 3rd grader. While younger kids can do this too, all the writing it requires was of no interest to my Kindergartner.

To do this, I created a T-chart. The left side of the chart asks for predictions, while right side asks for justification of the predictions. {Why did you make that prediction?}

First, I modeled with Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes, showing how I wanted him to think and use the printable T-Chart. By the end of the text, I was asking for his input, giving lots of support.

The next day, we used the text by Margie Palatini. This time, I released more of the responsibility to him, but I was still there to offer support when needed. He started with the cover, making predictions about the book on the left side, then justifying predictions on the right side {using reasons from the book mixed with his background knowledge.} He did this throughout the entire book.

Once the book was over, we went back through his predictions on the left side of the chart. I said, "Let's go through all your predictions and ask ourselves, 'Was your prediction confirmed?'" If it was, he added a check. If it wasn't, he crossed it out. His last prediction was never confirmed, so he included a question mark beside that one.

Making Predictions with Nonfiction Text

Making predictions is probably paired more with fiction, but readers can also predict with nonfiction. Below is simple activity reader can do before reading. As proficient readers, we automatically do this, but with younger readers, we have to make a switch to manual mode {out of automatic} so that they can "see" our thinking and hear our thoughts.

I modeled this with Hurricanes by Gail Gibbons and he did this with my help using a Discovery Kids book {like this one}, a book he had picked out at the library. For this activity to be effective, the text needs to have plenty of text features for the reader to use. While it doesn't have to have all the text features mentioned in the list on top of the printable page, it needs to have a good number.

First, ask the reader to look through the text at the text features. {If the reader you're teaching doesn't understand what text features are, it would be good to start there first. I have several resources here.} Based on what he observes with various text features from the book, ask the reader to predict what he thinks the book will be about. Making predictions before reading with nonfiction {as well as fiction} is a great activity to help kids set a purpose for reading.

I feel like I've just shared a load of information in one post. And truth be told, I've just skimmed the surface of making predictions!

See all the posts in our Reading Comprehension Strategies series.

Enjoy teaching,
~Becky

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Making predictions is something that proficient readers naturally do, even without knowing it. As soon as we pick up a new book on the library or book store shelf, we are making predictions and judgments about that book based on the cover as we thumb through the book.

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https://youtu.be/z3rUZsUoLI0

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Making Predictions to Help with Reading Comprehension

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ELL Student Activities for Making a Prediction

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ELL Student Activities for Making a Prediction

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Subscribe to Growing Readers!

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As a young reader, your child is learning to make predictions while reading. "What do you think will happen next?" "Who do you think drank Sara's lemonade?" These types of questions we ask children as they're reading help them learn to monitor their understanding of the story while thinking ahead to the next part. If your child is able to make good and fairly accurate predictions while reading, chances are she comprehends the story well.

Scientists, just like readers, make predictions all the time. In fact, scientists use predictions as part of their hypothesis, or question they try to answer through their experiments. Help your child begin to see the connection between what she does as a reader and what she can do as a scientist.

Below are two simple ways you can encourage your child to put her prediction skills to work as a scientist:

Play favorites

What is our family's favorite flavor of ice-cream? What is our favorite movie to watch together? What is our favorite bedtime story? Choose a question, or make up your own, that your child is excited about.

First, have your child predict or guess the answer to the question. Help her write down her prediction. "I think chocolate is our family's favorite flavor of ice cream." Then, have your child ask each member of the family for an answer. Have your child record the answers using a special Science Notebook or simply mark tally marks on paper. Finally, ask your child to compare her prediction to the actual answers.

Good guess!

Estimation is often very similar to a prediction. In both cases, your child will be working to make a good guess about an answer. As with our Play Favorites idea, encourage your child to write down (or write together) the questions and answers in a special Science Notebook. Whenever possible, encourage the use of scientific words like estimation, predication, collect data, analyze, and prove.

Here are some estimation questions that require your child to make a prediction:

How many noodles will it take to fill up this jar? Encourage your child to use scientific language and thinking to answer. "I predict it will take 300 noodles to fill the jar."

How many steps is it from our front door to the mailbox?

How much does our dog weigh?

How many library books fit on one shelf?

How long do you think it will take for the ice cubes to freeze (or melt)?

We predict your child will have great fun with these activities! And you can have fun knowing that you're helping your child make important connections between the skills of prediction, reading, and science.

Recommended children's books

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Subscribe to Growing Readers! Have Growing Readers delivered each month right to your inbox! (In English & Spanish) Sign up here > As a young reader, your child is learning to make predictions while reading. "What do you think will happen next?" "Who do you think drank Sara's lemonade?"

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Helping Students with Special Needs

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1. Supply students with a predictions worksheet while reading. You can create a simple worksheet by dividing a piece of paper in half, long ways, and writing "Prediction" on the left hand half and "Evidence" on the right hand half. As students read, they stop from time to time and write a prediction on what they think will happen next and write a few key words or phrases to back up why they made this prediction.

2. Have students review the front and back of a book, the table of contents, the chapter names, subheadings and diagrams in a book prior to reading. This helps them gain an understanding of the material before reading and think about what the book may be about.

3. Ask students to list as many possible outcomes of a story as they can think of. You might make this a class activity by reading a portion of a story and asking the class to think about different ways the story might turn out. List all the ideas on the board and review again after reading the rest of the story.

4. Have students go on a treasure hunt in a story. Using a highlighter or having students write clues on a separate paper, go through the story slowly, thinking about the clues the author gives about how the story will end.

1. Remind students to always look for the basics of a story: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. This information will help them separate the important and nonessential information in the story so they can guess what will happen next.

2. For younger children, go through the book, looking at and discussing the pictures before reading. Ask the student what he thinks is happening in the story. Then read the story to see how well he guessed.

3. For non-fiction reading, help students identify the main topic sentence. Once students can quickly identify the main idea, they can make predictions about how the rest of the paragraph or section will provide information to back up this sentence.

4. Predictions are closely related to inferences. To accurately make predictions students must understand not only what the author said, but what the author is implying. Help students understand how to make inferences while they are reading.

5. Read a story, stopping before you reach the ending. Have each student write their own ending to the story. Explain there is no right or wrong answers, that each student brings their own perspective to the story and wants it to end in their own way. Read the endings aloud so students can see the different possibilities. You can also have students vote on which ending they think will most closely match the author's ending. Then read the rest of the story.

1. Make predictions in steps. Have students look at the title and the front cover and make a prediction. Have them read the back cover or the first few paragraphs of the story and review and revise their prediction. Have them read more of the story, maybe a few more paragraphs or maybe the rest of the chapter (based on the age and the length of the story), and review and revise their prediction. Continue doing this until you have reached the end of the story.

2. Make predictions about more than story endings. Use a student's previous knowledge about a subject to predict what concepts are discussed in a chapter. Use vocabulary to discern what non-fiction text will be about. Use knowledge of an author's other works to predict writing style, plot or the structure of a book. Use the type of text, for example a textbook, to predict how information is presented.

3. Share your predictions with the class. Students model teacher's behaviors so if they see you making predictions and guessing about the ending to a story, they will be more apt to employ this skill as well.

1. Offer three possible endings to a story. Have the class vote on which ending they think matches the author's.

2. Allow for plenty of practice. As with any skill, it improves with practice. Stop often in reading to ask the class for predictions, use worksheets and model predictions skills. The more students see and use predictions skills, the better they will be at making predictions.

"Helping Students Develop Strong Content Area Reading Skills," 201, Joelle Brummitt-Yale, K12Readers.com

"Tips for Teaching: Comprehension Strategies," Date Unknown, Staff Writer, LearningPage.com

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Teaching Students to Make Predictions to Support Reading Comprehension

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Supply students with a predictions worksheet while reading. You can create a simple worksheet by dividing a piece of paper in half, long ways, and writing "Prediction" on the left hand half and "Evidence" on the right hand half.

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Making Predictions

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By Jackie Andrejko and Starr Sackstein

Peeking into the room, I see students attentively gathered on the rug, sitting before their teacher who is animated while she explains the activity they are about to start. Students eagerly wait for the cue to get up and move to their stations.

They have small, handheld whiteboards with post-its already on them with sentence starters and they know what they are going to be doing. (And just in case they forget, the teacher has projected the directions in writing on the board).

And they are off.

As an observer, this is what we want to see. Students meeting at each station, reading their line, trying to make meaning and then predictions, but even better are the conversations students are sharing.
The Teacher's Perspective
The corner of my otherwise tidy desk is piled high with folders that I have collected over a number of recent training sessions, professional developments, and conferences. They are stuffed with various takeaways of sorts that, at the time, seemed magnificent. I leave these sessions with my folder of new teaching and learning goodies tucked safely under my arm, and I feel inspired to share this engaging, new work with my students. However, days later, I realize that incorporating anything new is challenging. Instead of attempting a lesson that might flop, in the essence of already limited time, I go with what I can easily manage, the sure thing.

The difference with this particular lesson strategy presented at our recent literacy conference was that I could picture the faces of the readers in my class that this would benefit. I could easily see how this could offer students a different way to interact with a text. Hence, a crux of literacy instruction that teachers struggle with: making a rigorous text accessible for all students. I decided that this was too critical to sit in a folder, and I vowed to try it with my students.
Some Context for the Lesson from the Teacher
This has been the most challenging class in my 19 years of teaching. My 3rd grade class runs the gamut of academic abilities, IEP's, and students that receive building level and classroom accommodations. Many of the students have attentional difficulties. Additionally, this year's class has several social-emotional needs. Surprisingly for me, I found this to be the biggest contributing factor as to why some children were not available for learning.

It took many long and frustrating months to establish simple classroom routines and build a trusting learning community. In these early months, a carousel activity seemed impossible. Flash forward to May, with a new mindset and willingness to fail forward, found myself opening that pile of folders and attempting some messy learning.
The Carousel Activity explained by the teacher
The carousel activity was a pre-reading lesson in which the teacher chooses 4-5 key sentences from the text, preferably ones with that highlight content area vocabulary, context clues, or inferences. The sentences are written on sentence strips and attached to chart paper.

I broke the students into heterogeneous groups, ensuring that each group has a student that is a strong reader, writer and conversational leader. Each member used a marker board which contained four post-its (one for each poster) with the sentence stem, "I predict this text will be about because..."

Each group had time to read the sentence, discuss any unknown words, and then each student wrote their own prediction. The "carousel" continues as the students rotate around the room from poster to poster, discussing the sentences and making their predictions of how these sentences may fit together in a larger way.

At the conclusion, we gathered together to discuss the experience, before we discussed the pre-reading predictions.

The students did not see the article in its entirety until the following day.
Reflections about the experience - what worked and why
For so many reasons, I can honestly say I considered this lesson successful, and better than expected. Primarily, my once "challenging" class conducted themselves like students who naturally knew how to navigate a student-centered activity! Hooray!

Our months of practicing accountable talk paid off. Additionally, as we walked around listening-in to the rich conversations that students were having, we heard everything from students discussing the author's purpose, to students "thinking-aloud" to explain their conclusions of vocabulary meanings.

It was evident that majority of their post-it thinking was supported by their understandings from the text. Finally, the students were excited to read the full article. They couldn't wait to see if their predictions were reasonable.
Tips for making this happen in your class

Discuss, model and practice expectations for group work, participation, and effective peer discussions. It could be helpful to keep anchor charts up to support these protocols all year long.

Present directions both orally, and visually. Keep student responsibilities for the task visible throughout the lesson so students may reference it. If you see students going astray, redirect their attention to the task and ask them what they could be doing to support the learning.

Have students help set up the activity by preparing the post-its by writing the sentence stems on each. For older learners, you may have choices for sentence stems or a menu of options to push thinking further rather than using only one.

Decide how you want to group the students ahead of time, based on the specific needs of your groups and the activity objectives.

Step back and just "listen-in" to students. Allow them to pose/answer questions for each other. Consider recording their questions when you hear them to bring them to a broader group discussion as you collect data.

Have a summarizing activity ready for students to put their learning together and share final thoughts. The teacher used Padlet for this activity to make learning visible and push students a little farther. FlipGrid would work well too.

It was clear that the best kinds of learning were happening in this space. The teacher orchestrated the activity in such a way that had all learners engaged and sharing their voices in meaningful ways and rather than redirect students if they wandered a bit, she listened and allowed them to find their way back. Sometimes, she asked questions that helped students make deeper meaning.

A carousel activity like this work could work for so many different objectives, much like a stations activity or a jigsaw. When we consider the activities we want to bring to our students, we must always know our why before we start. What is the purpose of the lesson and which activity will best convey that learning in the most engaging way for all learners?
How have you used a carousel activity with your learners? If you haven't tried, what could you use it for? Please share

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Helping Students Make Reading Predictions

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By Jackie Andrejko and Starr Sackstein Peeking into the room, I see students attentively gathered on the rug, sitting before their teacher who is animated while she explains the activity they are about to start. Students eagerly wait for the cue to get up and move to their stations.

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For Making Predictions

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The Switch - Perfect for teaching prediction.  Pause film at point where man sees red button and see if kids can p… | Making Predictions and Inferences | Pinterest | Teaching, Classroom and Reading

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The Switch - Perfect for teaching prediction.  Pause film at point where man sees red button and see if kids can predict what will happen to him based upon their knowledge of cartoon physics and plots.  :)

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1
Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.5
Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

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Making Predictions

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Provide additional examples of predictions. Use basic pictures to make predictions about scenarios.

Allow students to record observations on a concept web in their home language (L1).

Intermediate:

Review the definition of prediction and give examples of predictions we make in our everyday lives. For example, we predict what others are feeling based on clues, such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language.

Display a sentence frame for students to use when sharing their observations in the game. For example, "I think ________ will happen next because ___________."

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Making Predictions Lesson | Lesson Plan | Education.com

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This lesson thoughtfully scaffolds the reading skill of predicting.