The Importance of Making Predictions

If you were to have your palm read, the lines on your palm would be examined to predict what will happen to you in the future. But when a reader makes predictions about a novel or textbook, specific details from the text are used. Predicting is a reading comprehension strategy that readers use to anticipate what comes next based on clues from the text and by using their prior knowledge.

From the second a reader sees the title of a text, looks at a picture on the cover, or reads the first line, prior knowledge from what they’ve learned and/or from life experiences is used to make predictions or educated guesses. Predicting is an ongoing process that keeps the reader engaged as he or she tries to figure out what is coming next by making new predictions. He or she is also revising old predictions as more information is gathered. From beginning readers to adults who’ve been reading the majority of their lives, predictions help keep readers focused and motivated, and it shows that they understand what they are reading.

More advanced readers make predictions very naturally before and during the reading process, much like when someone watches a movie and keeps interrupting it to say what they think will happen next. This may be annoying, but it shows that the person is demonstrating a higher level of thinking versus passively reading or watching and absorbing everything without questioning or thinking about it.

How to Model Predicting & Its Importance

With beginning readers, you should model predictions by thinking aloud. This is done when you read a text to the class and talk about your thought process in order to show students how to make predictions. For example, a student might think The Three Little Pigs is going to be about three pigs on a farm because of the title. There aren’t any detailed clues as to its context. But you can guide the students to examine the picture on the cover, pointing out the angry wolf and saying, ‘What can we predict about him?’

It’s also important to model how to revise predictions while reading. During the story, you can pause at different points to ask questions like, ‘What do you think will happen when the wolf tries to blow down the pig’s house made of bricks?’ A student might predict that the wolf will be able to blow the house down. But then you might ask, ‘Well, what do we know about bricks? Are they heavier or lighter than straw or sticks?’ After discussing how strong bricks are, that student would revise his prediction and say he thinks the house of bricks won’t blow down. Pausing for discussion and predictions keeps readers engaged, gives them practice making educated guesses based on clues in the text and their own prior knowledge, and informs you as to whether or not the students are comprehending the text and if anything needs to be explained or reviewed.

After students have practiced this way of making predictions as a group, they can move on to making predictions on their own while you monitor their progress by having students share their predictions and the clues that point to those educated guesses. The goal is to get students to make predictions independently and naturally as they read.

Making predictions while reading informational texts is just as important as making predictions when reading novels because it shows that students:

• Comprehend the material
• Can predict what will come next
• Understand the structure or layout, noting the importance of reading subtitles, headings, footnotes, and words in bold or italics

A Tool for Making Predictions

One way to provide guided practice for making predictions is to give them a three-column prediction list. It will look something like this:

Students can use this to predict what characters will say and do, and what will happen to them. As you can see, there’s a column to first write a prediction of what will happen next, then a column for clues (words or phrases from the text) that support that prediction, and lastly, a column for changes to predictions made based on new information read. You can stop readers at certain points to have students share their predictions, the clues from the text or from their prior knowledge that make them predict that, and how their predictions have changed once they’ve read more.

Let’s say some intermediate level middle school students were reading the short story ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ by Ambrose Bierce. They could write their first prediction using the three-column prediction list right after reading the first sentence of the story: ‘A man stood upon a railroad bridge in Northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below.’

One student might write in the left column: ‘This is going to be about a man who is depressed.’ In the middle, she might list the clues: ‘man on bridge,’ ‘looking down into the swift water.’ After reading the rest of the first paragraph, she’d realize that this man is tied up with a rope around his neck, thanks to some Federal army soldiers. She might then write in the third column: ‘The rope and soldiers made me realize he’s probably going to be hung. I predict we’ll learn he committed a crime.’

For advanced readers, reading an informational text, such as an article on the dangers of smoking, you can use the three-column prediction list as well. The article’s introduction discusses the fact that despite the decline in teens who smoke cigarettes, it is still a big problem in the U.S. today, causing more than 480,000 deaths annually. A student might predict that the article will explain smoking-related illnesses, so she would write that in the first column. Then, in the second column, she would identify clues from the intro that led her to believe that. She would then quote phrases from the text, like ‘still a big problem’ and ‘480,000 deaths annually.’ Then, after reading more, she would revise her prediction in the third column if necessary. If the article were to actually go on to discuss more about the decline in teen smoking, then she could write, ‘facts about teen smoking showed me it’s going to focus on that instead.’

Lesson Summary

Let’s review what we just covered. Predicting is a reading comprehension strategy that readers use to anticipate what comes next based on clues from the text and by using their prior knowledge.

The title of a text, the picture on the cover, and the first line of a story or article all activate a reader’s prior knowledge and what he or she has learned or experienced is used to make predictions. Predicting is an ongoing process that keeps the reader engaged as he or she tries to figure out what is coming next by making new predictions. You should model predicting with beginning readers by thinking out loud and discussing clues that help students make educated guesses.

One way to provide guided practice for making predictions is to give students a three-column prediction list. Students can use this to predict what characters will say and do, and what will happen to these characters as they read.