A student glancing at a text and predicting “It is about dolphins” is just not good enough. This surface level prediction will not help them as much as an informed prediction. This is what I would want students to say in a prediction:
I think this book is going to be about the dolphins that live in Shark Bay which is off the coast of Australia. I know that because I thought about the title and the map that was on one of the first pages. I also think it’s going to tell me about families of dolphins and different types of dolphins because the captions and photographs I previewed included details about…
This is the kind of prediction that will move students forward in comprehending the text.
How do we help students do this?
Model using a mnemonic like HIP, TELL, or THIEVES and “think aloud” about what your predictions are because of what you learned while previewing. As I do this, I post the text I’m previewing – using a document camera or a Smart board. As I think aloud, I point to the features I’m examining as a visual scaffold for students. I’ve also modeled taking notes about what I’m learning during the preview – just to reinforce thinking carefully about what I’m learning during the preview.
Below are sample anchor charts.
For more information about THIEVES (Manz, 2002) see two previous blog entries I’ve written. Links are below. The information in these blog entries is relevant to what you might do with HIP and TELL as well.
- Start the year with THIEVES and a clear purpose for predicting/previewing
- Rethinking use of “THIEVES” – not teaching “in order of T-H-“
Hope this helps.
Sunday
Original source for THIEVES – Manz, S. L. (2002). A strategy for previewing textbooks: Teacher readers to become THIEVES. The Reading Teacher, 55(4), 434.
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