Making Predictions!

Welcome to the first post of Smashing Strategies for Guided Reading, a monthly-link up between 8 teacher bloggers! Each of us will share a guided reading strategy, a teaching tip, and sometimes a freebie! Each month, you’ll have the chance to win a product relevant to each different strategy we blogged about! Time to build up those guided reading resources!  

Making predictions is such a crucial skill for children to learn. What we discover as we grow is life is full of predictions, especially in reading! I am ALWAYS telling my students, "Good Readers Make Predictions!" 

Before heading to the guided reading table, I always start with a quick shared reading lesson. Gather all the students to the floor and do a read aloud in which I model MAKING PREDICTIONS. 

Then we head to our guided reading table... One great book I love to use for teaching this strategy is Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens. It's a book about a lazy bear and a tricky hare... full of illustrations and a plot that leads itself to making predictions for beginners!  If you don't have this book or time to go to the library, check out this free read-aloud of Tops and Bottoms on youtube by clicking on the image below!

Meanwhile, meet our friend Paige...Our little helper Predicting Paige makes the road to predicting a LITTLE more tangible for young learners! 

 I briefly introduce Paige as I model making prediction during shared reading but where she really comes alive is at the guided reading table! Each child is given a Predicting Paige trade card that includes her caption, describing what it means to make predictions! Then each child is given a small stack of sticky notes and a pencil. For 2-3 minutes, we discuss how good readers make predictions by looking for clues. We take pictures walks through the book together; we look at the title of the book, and discuss how the back of the book can give us clues before we even start to read! 

Each child is given a leveled guided reading book , according to their Fountas & Pinnell reading level (as you can see from the pictures, each group is reading a different book) and then start recording predictions on each page using their sticky notes. The children are given instructions to make a prediction before they read each page. After the prediction is recorded, they read to find out if it was correct! We talk about how we don't always find the answer to our predictions immediately; sometimes we have to keep reading to find out! I rotate around the table for 10-12 minutes, listening to each child read individually as well as conversing about their predictions. This helps me gauge how each child is coming along with the new strategy. 

As we wrap up, I pass out this Predicting with Paige sheet below, and encourage them to find the two predictions they were MOST PROUD of during their reading. They record the clues they found, the predictions they made and rationale behind it. After that, they record whether or not their prediction was correct! 

*Note after we do this in guided reading for three days, I give this same sheet to my students during their Daily 5 rotations to complete during "read to self" and "listen to reading." This provides accountability in their centers, as well as a quick assessment for me to see how they're working with this strategy on an independent level! 

If you are interested... click on the freebie image to download your own copy of Predicting Paige to use in your classroom! 

If Predicting Paige seems like something of interest to you... enter this giveaway to win the COMPLETE Guided Reading Crew & Their Strategies, Too package! It includes 11 different characters; each character has a specific strategy he/she is associated with! 

*Inferring Izzie

*Connections Carter

*Questioning Quinton

*Schema Sophie

*Background Knowledge Brayden

*Retelling Reagan

*Author's Purpose Ada

*Predicting Paige

*Cause & Effect Chloe

*Summarizing Sebastian

*Visualizing Violet

Your students will fall in love with these silly characters, and hopefully the graphic organizers that go with each will help eliminate prep-time for you guided reading groups! These characters can be used for shared reading, guided reading or independent reading! Print out the trading cards to send home for parents as resources, or leave in your students reading bins! 

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Want to get some more ideas for guided reading? Check out these other blog posts! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for reading... don't forget to come back next month for more guided reading strategies, teaching tips and giveaways!