Predicting What Lies Ahead

By Doug Buehl,
Madison East High School teacher
Member, Wisconsin State Reading Association

April 2004

That’s your prediction? Which presidential candidate will be victorious in the fall election? What baseball teams will make it to the World Series? Which movie will be the year’s blockbuster? Will evidence continue to accumulate that our planet is experiencing global warming?

Predictions – we spend our days speculating on what might be.

Of course, predictions are a natural human response to the avalanche of phenomena that we encounter in our lives. As we endeavor to make sense of what we experience, invariably, we predict. Our hours hum with predictions: How long will it take to prepare this meal? How will students respond to this particular lesson? How will my father like the gift I selected? How much longer will it be before we have to trade in that increasingly unreliable second car?

Making predictions is also a core strategy for reading comprehension. Proficient readers constantly attempt to “read ahead” of an author – picking up clues and predicting what might unfold. Predictions are a category of inference: when we predict, we are going beyond what is explicitly stated to anticipate what, where, why, how, who, if. Developing students’ abilities to make reasonable predictions helps sharpen their inferential thinking.

The Strategy
Activities that prompt predictions can be integrated into a curriculum in a variety of ways.

Step 1: Establish with students the characteristics of solid predictions. Predictions are not haphazard “shots in the dark.” Nor are they merely opinions. Instead, a good prediction is grounded in two ways. First, the prediction must be consistent with the available evidence. Students making a prediction must be able to cite relevant information from a text that lends support to the reasonableness of their hunch.

Second, the prediction must be consistent with previous experiences. What we already know about a situation, or what has happened previously in similar circumstances, allows us to conjecture about this particular instance.

As students explore various predictions, introduce a critical proviso: although a prediction may be thoughtful and well-founded, it still may turn out to be incorrect. Many excellent predictions fail to be realized. Emphasize that predicting is sophisticated thinking that draws upon incomplete information. The process of confirming and rejecting predictions is an essential dynamic of comprehension and the essence of active reading.

Step 2: Model predicting as a think-aloud. Select a short text that can be displayed on the overhead projector or provide students with a copy. As you think aloud, speculate what you think the author might include next, where you think a story might be heading, or what other aspects you might be wondering about. Show how various statements or hints in the text prompt your predictions, and also how your personal knowledge and experiences guide and shape your predictions.

For example, a New York Times newspaper article titled “In an Obese World, Sweet Nothings Add Up,” could elicit the following predictions:
The word obese means overweight, so I am predicting that this article is about overweight Americans, a topic I’ve been reading a lot about recently. The phrase “sweet nothings” makes me predict that much attention will be on foods that contain a lot of sugar. The opening paragraph details soft drinks, candies, baked goods and breakfast cereals, which I’m predicting the article will say Americans eat too much of. The following paragraph mentions weight gain and ill health, which seems to confirm my first prediction, and adds another one: I’m predicting the article will talk about Type 2 diabetes, which I know is related to excessive sugar in our diets, and perhaps heart disease, which is correlated to carrying too many pounds . . . and so on.

Step 3: Create prediction guides that provide students with practice in making reasonable predictions as well as establishing purposes for reading a specific text. Formal prediction guides feature a series of statements about the topic that may or may not be validated in the text.

For example, statements related to the New York Times article mentioned above could include:

• Americans eat too many foods that contain high amounts of sugar.
  
• Artificial sweeteners are better for your body than sugar.
  
• Type 2 diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar.
  
• Fruit drinks are better for you than soft drinks.
  
• The sweetener saccharin has been proven to cause cancer.
  
• Because of the popularity of organic foods, sugar consumption for Americans has actually gone down in recent years.
  
• Sugar is not related to hyperactivity in children.
  

Prediction guides are an excellent strategy for reinforcing the two conditions for reasonable predictions. The first stage involves making predictions on whether the article will confirm each statement. This stage engages students in searching their personal knowledge and experience base to justify their predictions. Students (and many of us) will discover that some of our predictions regarding the above statements will be disproved by the article.

The second stage immerses students into the text, as they read to discover which of their predictions are supported by the author. This phase of the prediction guide asks students to search for textual evidence that backs up or contradicts a prediction. The prediction guide gives students a clear purpose for reading, which parallels what proficient readers do as a matter of habit – reading to substantiate predictions.

Step 4: Ask students to generate their own predictions from a text. This process can be prompted by an informal prediction guide, which pauses students at various junctures during their reading and asks them to make a prediction.

Posted March 19, 2004