This activity encourages students to think about what they read, relating their experiences and opinions to the text. Good readers are willing to modify and extend their thinking and to cross-check and refine their interpretations as they read.
Strategies/Skills Used
Reading Strategy 1: Access background knowledge.
Reading Strategy 2: Predict what will be learned or what will happen.
Reading Strategy 6: Connect what you read with what you already know.
Reading Strategy 11: Make inferences and draw conclusions.
Reading Strategy 12: Reflect and respond.
(1) When reading to the students, pause and ask students to write a response or a prediction about what they think is going to happen next. See suggested Response Log/Journal Prompts.
(2) Have students share these predictions with a partner.
(3) Read on, while students confirm or alter their predictions.
(4) Reading silently or listening, encourage students to take notes on things that are of particular interest to them (e.g. quotes, dialogues, changes in a character’s behavior). Again, they can share these responses with a partner.
(5) Have students discuss the text and their personal reflections with the class.
