A key pre-reading strategy for children is making predictions. Students start out by reading the book title and the summary on the back. They also take a "picture walk," flipping through the story only to look at the pictures. With this information in mind, they make predictions about what the story will be about. To help students with this previewing activity, Harcourt Schools Publishers have a game called "Dig It." During this game, children read clues and make predictions about what will happen next; their prize for accurate predictions is discovering what Digger the dog uncovers in the park.
A specific activity that goes with making predictions is the Tea Party. Reading specialist Kylene Beers initially developed this activity. For this activity, the teacher distributes a set of cards containing key vocabulary and ideas from the story. The students mingle, sharing the information, discussing possible connections and making predictions about what the story is about. In small groups they share the predictions and write a group preview of the story. The Teaching Channel revises this activity as a Silent Tea Party that has students reading quotes on a worksheet and making predictions on their own.
An important element both of predicting and previewing is getting students to activate their prior knowledge of a topic. All readers come to a text with previous experiences, knowledge and even attitudes related to the topic; this information helps them make connections to the story and, therefore, synthesize the new learning with the old. A common activity for this strategy is the KWL chart. Either as a group or individually, students relate what they already know (K), what they want to know (W) and, after reading, what they learned (L). The chart helps them track their knowledge acquisition.
The Probable Passage, another Beers invention, synthesizes the strategies of making predictions and activating prior knowledge as well as setting a purpose. In this activity students study a teacher-generated list of up to 14 key words from the story. In small groups, they categorize the words according to the following topics: characters, setting, problem, solution and unknown words. The key is that students must discuss all the words, thus using their prior knowledge to instruct each other. They then work together to write a prediction statement about the passage as well as a set of questions for when they read the story. They have now set their own purpose for reading the story.