View Content #28961

by Cameron Teubner-Keller, CASLS Student Worker

This activity guides learners through making predictions about the meaning of a given text before they begin reading it. It was created for learners of all levels.

Learning outcomes:
Learners will be able to:

• Identify the genre of a given text
• Create a list of the genre-specific elements found in a given text
• Predict the meaning of a given text using genre-specific elements

Mode(s): Interpretive

Materials: Make Connections: Prepare for Reading Video, reading text of learners’ choice (printed or digital), Making

Procedure:

1. Begin by telling learners that they will be practicing the reading strategy of making predictions and making connections. If possible, the day before the activity, let learners give input on what kind of text they would be interested in reading. This voice will likely increase motivation for your learners.
2. Give your learners the Making Connections: Pre-Reading Strategies Handout.
3. Give the text to the learners and tell them to think about the type, or genre, of the text they have. Come prepared with a different text of the same genre to use as an example as you discuss the following questions together. Have your learners take notes on the handout in Part 1:
   • What are some different types, or genres, of texts that you know of?
   • What genre is the given text?
   • What are the structural elements of this genre of text?
4. After discussing these questions together, play the Make Connections: Prepare for Reading Video.
5. Then, either in pairs or individually (if preferred by learners), ask learners to create a list of the structural elements that they find in the text by using Part 2 of the handout. Remind learners that they are not reading the text, but looking for elements such as headings, titles, quotes, pictures, etc. in order to later make connections.
6. Next, have your learners remain in their same groups and ask them to find similarities or overlap between the elements that they have listed. The goal is to have your learners connect the separate elements to an overlapping topic or idea. Have your learners write their connections in Part 3 of the handout. Pose questions such as:

   • Do the elements seem to be related in any way?

7. During this phase of the activity, you can optionally add another step. Have your learners write down the common vocabulary words they find in the different elements, and in groups, have them predict the meaning of the words using the contextual information they’ve discovered in the elements they’ve examined. Fill out the table in Part 3.5 on the handout as needed. This portion of the activity can be skipped if necessary for time.
8. After your learners have completed Steps 5-7  in their original groups, you can optionally shuffle the groups and have your learners discuss the elements and connections that they wrote down with different groups. This can help learners to discover things they missed in their first groups.
9.  Finally have your learners make predictions on what the text will be about and provide reasoning for their predictions in Part 4 of the handout. This can be through providing elements, vocabulary, or connections that they discovered while doing this activity. Document the predictions made by your learners through writing or multimodal creations (labeled drawings, charts, etc.).
10. Don’t forget to revisit these predictions after your learners have done the reading. What new connections can be made, and what other elements can be added to your lists?

Notes: 

• If your learners are struggling to come up with examples of genres or elements on their own in Step 3, give some examples such as; emails, articles, titles, quotes, or images. This should help jumpstart the brainstorming process. Create a list visible to all your learners of the genres/elements that you brainstorm.
• Adjusting the difficulty of the text is the easiest way to differentiate this activity for multiple proficiency levels.