Asking Questions

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge

Making Predictions

Good readers make predictions to be actively involved with what they are reading. It helps them to think ahead and anticipate events or information in a book. Making predictions is  the beginning step for students to make connections to what they are reading so they can deepen their understanding.

Good readers use clues from pictures, titles, headings and text along with their schema to make reasonable predictions.

Here are some examples of predictions we made using book covers in the classroom.

We predict the book is about a boy who delivers newspapers with his dog to earn extra money becasue the title is The Paperboy.  He might be saving money for a video game because that is something we know a kid might really want. The street looks dark so we think it could be early in the morning. The boy doesn’t look very happy so maybe he has to get up extra early to deliver the papers. In the story he might be falling asleep at school because he had to wake up early.

We predict that this story is about a girl and her mom or grandma who live in the country. They are getting milk and eggs to bake a cake when a storm comes. We think this because we know these ingredients come from animals on a farm and we can see storm clouds in the sky. The title also includes the words thunder and cake. Another prediction is that the they are delivering a cake to a neighbour across the field for a special celebration and then get caught in a thunderstorm. The cake might get ruined from the rain.