Overview
This lecture introduces two essential reading strategies—previewing and predicting—to help students become more effective readers by actively engaging with texts before reading.
Previewing Strategies
- Previewing involves examining key elements of a text before reading, such as covers, titles, images, and indexes in books.
- When previewing articles or chapters, look at visuals, highlighted words, titles, subtitles, and the number of paragraphs.
- Previewing helps readers identify the main topics and structure of the reading material.
- The goal of previewing is to gather initial information and context about the text to aid understanding.
Predicting Strategies
- Predicting means making guesses about a text’s content based on previewed information like titles, images, and captions.
- Formulate questions about the text's subject, main ideas, or content before reading.
- Predicting encourages active engagement and curiosity, setting a purpose for reading.
- Example predictions from previewing a chapter: Magellan’s biography, his connection to oceans, or encounters with a monster.
Example Application
- Preview the title, pictures, captions, and text features to gather context (e.g., a chapter on "Sailing around the world" suggests a story about Magellan).
- Make predictions such as the chapter's focus or possible story events, and generate guiding questions (e.g., "Where was Magellan from?").
Key Terms & Definitions
- Previewing — Examining key parts of a text before reading to understand its structure and main ideas.
- Predicting — Using clues from previewing to guess content and form questions before reading.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Practice previewing and predicting with an assigned reading or textbook chapter.
- Prepare a list of questions and predictions before your next reading session.