Brainstorming is a pre-reading activity that encourages students to call forward new information and integrate it with prior experience, including language and print conventions. It also allows students to continuously form hypotheses as they read.
Strategies/Skills Used
Reading Strategy 1: Access background knowledge.
Reading Strategy 2: Predict what will be learned or what will happen.
(1) Post a topic related to the story that will be read.
(2) Encourage students to create lists of words about the topic using a semantic map, e.g. Topic: Olympics – people – events.
(3) Lead a discussion with students about what the story could be about. Encourage them to use their semantic maps.
