Strategy Instruction for Making Predictions and Making Connections

1. Strategy Instruction for Making Predictions and Making Connections EDC423 Dr. Julie Coiro

2. Today’s Learning Objectives • 1. Review key components of Metacognitive Framework • 2. Review important considerations for teaching students how to “predict” an “make connections” while reading. • 3. Apply these strategies to your own reading of a text and practice modeling for students – in preparation for your book activity

3. Good Strategy Instruction • What is it? (name it and define it) • Why is it important? • How do you use the strategy? • When is it useful? • (remember Explain & Define; Notice and Apply from your textbook as the MODELING phase of strategy instruction)

4. Predicting Why do good readers predict? • It gives a purpose for reading • Helps build internal tension • Helps anticipate a satisfying ending • Connect prior knowledge & new information • Predictions serve as guideposts. • We monitor our predictions from time to time to see how they hold up (That’s what I thought! -- Wow, that’s not what I thought!)

5. Problems with Predicting • Children’s predictions are often inaccurate, because of the text or the reader. • Children underestimate the importance of text features in informational text. • Many children don’t take the time to predict properly and never revisit to solidify or revise their prediction. • Your Teaching Goal: Help students make predictions that are accurate and meaningful

6. Define: What is a prediction? • A prediction is more than a guess – “an educated guess” perhaps. • What two things do we need to make a good prediction? BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE + = CLUES IN TEXT PREDICTION

7. Explain: How and when do good readers predict? • See the Predicting Tally Sheet (p. 204) for CLUES IN THE TEXT but be careful about being too prescriptive! • 1. Title, headings, cover, pictures, captions • 2. Ask questions • 3. Knowledge of the topic • 4. Knowledge about the author/genre/book • 5. Text organization & structure • 6. Past events in the text • 7. Meaningful connections • 8. Knowledge of the character

8. MODEL = Define… Explain… Notice… Apply…Clarify • Define and Explain • “How is a prediction different than a guess” • Good, so what I hear you saying is predicting is… • Explain (Clues & BK = Prediction) • Good readers make predictions using clues from … (THE TALLY SHEET). you’re going to think about what you used to make that prediction. What clues in the text? What background knowledge in your head? • Model … Notice & Apply • Clarify(sum up at the end)

9. Thinking Aloud in Action • So, let’s see how this all plays out in a real read-aloud/think-aloud - Amos & Boris by William Steig • Look for… • Examples of me defining & explaining how to predict and why predicting is useful • Examples of me “thinking aloud” to model • Examples of me asking you to “notice” how I predicted and how it was useful • Examples of me gradually inviting you to predict WITH me (but also offering support and clarification)

10. You Try Now • Write your Think-Aloud • Ask students to Notice & Apply • You will do more of this for Book Activity 3 (you can choose predicting or connecting)

11. Making Connections Good readers actively relate ideas in print to their own knowledge, experiences, and other texts. Making connections helps readers to: • Relate to characters with links to their own experiences • Visualize particular details • Help pay attention and remember (store) main ideas for later recall • Ask questions to better make sense of or clarify the ideas from a reader’s own perspective (“So, is that like when…?)

12. Problems with Teaching Connecting • Children’s connections may be irrelevant. • Children’s connections may pull attention away from the main ideas of the new text. • Children need help understanding that connections are helpful for understanding new material (not just for sharing their own experiences) • Your Teaching Goal: Help students make relevant connections in ways that help them to better understand the current text

13. What types of connections can I make? • Text-to-self connections • This reminds me of a time when I… • Text-to-text connections • This book/character/event is a lot like/very different from ___ because… • Text-to-world connections • I once heard about … • Text-to-author connections • This reminds me of how this author always …

14. When can I make useful and relevant connections? • See the Connecting Tally Sheet (p. 207) – but don’t get tied down to these • 1. Connect to characters • 2. Connect to plot • 3. Connect to the setting or place • 4. Connect to visualize, taste, feel, or hear the text • 5. Connect to predict or infer what will happen • 6. Connect to what I know about a topic or word • 7. Connect to help me feel emotions • 8. Connect to what I know about text structure

15. After Modeling…Activities to Practice/Apply Predicting • Think back to the tally sheet of clues to use for predicting: • Title…Anticipation Guide (p. 86-see next slide) • Topic/Vocab…Predict-o-gram (see next slide) • Questions..Sticky Note Questions (p. 88) • Questions..Preview, Read, Question (p. 88) • Author/Genre…Story map; genre features (p. 93) • Predict what you’d find in types of expository texts: ABC books, magazines, newspapers, ads, brochures, invitations, menus…fairy tales (e.g., Cinderella) • (All ideas for your own lesson plan)

16. Anticipation Guide: Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit • Identify major themes – write several statements – students discuss & react before reading and then revisit after

17. Predict-o-gram: Crow Boy by Tara Yashima • How would Taro Yashima use each vocabulary word? forlorn, interesting, trudging, imagine, graduation, attendance, admired, announced, charcoal, rejected

18. Story Map/Genre- Use to predict story elements in Cinderella for example

19. Activities to practice/apply Making Connections • Use sticky-notes to make connections while reading • Tally them up after and encourage students to expand the types of connections they make the next time • Connections Continuum • Generate a list of connections on sticky notes and ask students to sequence in order from most meaningful to least meaningful(encourage students to remember this when they make their own connections) • Story Maps • Anticipation Guides • Compare and contrast across a genre (e.g., fairy tale) or across several variants of one story (e.g., Cinderella)

20. Elements of Story • Exposition: background of characters & setting • Characters: protagonist and antagonist • Conflict: the problem • Rising Action: building the tension • Climax: the turning point of the story (not most exiting) • Resolution: the problem is solved • Falling Action: tie up loose ends/provide closure • Theme: message or lesson conveyed (not just a topic) How do these play out in the traditional Cinderella story?

21. Homework • Tuesday, Oct. 11 – NO CLASS • (tip: pretend Book Activity 3 due here) • Read Hancock Ch. 4: Modern Fantasy (elements) • Study for quiz on Thursday • Thursday, Oct. 13 – • Book Activity #3: Strategy Script due • Finish reading Vacation Under the Volcano (will be on quiz) • Quiz #1 (see wiki homepage link for quiz topics) – should take about 30 minutes