Reading Strategy: Plan Your Reading

Good readers know how to preview a selection to predict what the story will be about. Before you read a story, look at all of the pages to decide what the selection is about. Think about what you might learn.

Reading Strategy Plan Your Reading
    How to Preview and Predict

  • 1. To preview, look at the title and art. Read the first paragraph.

  • 2. To predict, use your preview information to guess what the selection will be about.

  • 3. As you read, look for information that tells if your prediction is correct.

Strategy in Action

Here is how one student previewed the selection and made a prediction.

Look Into the Text
title

title

art

PREVIEW

“The art and title tell me this story is about something mysterious or scary.”

In movies, geniuses have frizzy white hair, right? They wear thick glasses and have names like Dr. Zweistein.

first paragraph

I predict the story will be about a genius kid named Peter.

Peter Lu didn’t have frizzy white hair. He had straight hair, as black as licorice. He didn’t wear thick glasses, either, since his vision was normal.

PREDICT

“I’ll read on to see if I’m right.”

Practice Together

Preview the selection, and predict what it is about. Follow the steps in the How-To box. Write your predictions on sticky notes. Place your sticky notes in the selection. As you read, check your predictions.