Before beginning any reading or viewing activity in my classroom, I always start with the “4P’s” – previewing, predicting, accessing prior knowledge and assessing purpose. Practicing each of these pre-reading strategies is a sure-fire way to amp up engagement and help your students become more active readers.
Read on to see how I introduce each strategy and how your students can implement these skills for all of their reading tasks.
#1 - Previewing
To teach my students about the power of previewing a text, I use a variety of books as examples to model how I would approach this strategy. I verbalize my thinking process as I read the book’s title, look at the cover image, flip through the pages to confirm what type of text it is, read the summary on the back, and note any other interesting details. Then I summarize what I know about the text and explain how without having read one word yet, I already have so much knowledge about the book. Knowing what type of text it is will help to determine the reading strategies I use while reading, as well as the kinds of text features I can look for to help me while I read.
#2 - Predicting
When I introduce prediction as a pre-reading strategy, I place images of different novel covers on the board. I try to choose covers that have specific design elements that add to my ability to predict. For example, a spooky looking font paired with dark imagery will provide certain clues to aid in predicting the plotline. I model one example for students, showing them how I use the title, cover image, and design elements to help make a prediction of what I think the story will be about, then I ask students to predict the next examples as a class. I explain how making predictions can help us to become more active, engaged readers because as we read, we think about and revise our predictions as we gather more information.
Movie trailers can also provide a more accessible and engaging text to analyze and practice reading strategies with. A fun predicting activity my students enjoy is watching different movie trailers and predicting what the movie will be about. Students use clues in the dialogue, imagery, caption or title fonts, and music selection to help make their predictions.
#3 - Accessing Prior Knowledge
To help students think about their prior knowledge before reading or viewing a text, I model how to use our previewing and predicting skills to make connections to what we already know about a topic. Returning back to the book covers from the previewing or predicting stage, I explain how I can relate to a topic or what it reminds me of. For example, a horror story with scary imagery on the cover might remind me of movies I’ve seen with similar aesthetics. Once I’ve made this connection, my brain has accessed all of my prior knowledge of this genre of storytelling and I can use this knowledge to better understand the reading by making connections and inferences as I read.
#4 - Assessing Purpose
When discussing the purpose of a text, I first explain to students why this is an important step before reading. I pose the question, “if you were completing a history project, would you rather have a textbook published in 1952 or one published this year?” Students should figure out that having a new history textbook would mean that the information is up to date and reflects current beliefs and ways of thinking. I then ask, “In addition to knowing when something was written, why is it also important to know who wrote it?” Discuss how knowing the background of a writer can help us to determine whether a text is biased or may contain specific beliefs influenced by the writer’s upbringing or current lifestyle. Thinking about these factors can help us to figure out the purpose of a text – to entertain, persuade, inform and so on. Explain how this will come into play after reading when students can assess whether the purpose for reading was met and what questions they may still have.
