Preread to Read

Citation: McGinely, William; Peter R. Denner. “Story impressions: A prereading/writing activity” Journal of Reading. 1987. pp. 248-253.

Learning Strategy: Students use their prior knowledge to predict a story’s content.

Significance for Literacy: Students must be able to relate the words together using prior knowledge.

Purpose: To teach students how to extrapolate a story from the minimum amount of information. To get students to logically link clues to create a story. Students realize that reading is an active process much the same way that writing is.

Procedure:

1) Introduce the story that the students are going to read.

2) Students are given clue words and phrases that give an overall impression of the characters, events and setting in a story (max of 3 words per clue).

3) The words are presented in sequence with arrows linking them down the page.

4) The students brainstorm as a class as to what the linkages are.

5) The students must then guess at what the story is.

6) The class then writes a story from the impression they got from the clue words.

7) Students then read the actual piece.

8) Students review the class piece and look for similarities and differences.

9) Impress upon the students that the important thing is to write a logical story based on the clues, not to get the story right.

10) On subsequent occasions, you can set it up where individual students come up with their own stories and then compare them with each other.

Applications to English: The applications in the English classroom are pretty straightforward as it is all about the reading and understanding of literature. Students will be able to “speed-read” easier. They will gain a valuable skill of gleaning the meaning of a piece from the minimum of information. Students start to see reading as a process related to the drafting and composing of a text. This is a great technique, especially for younger readers.

Modifications:

· Students could look at accompanying pictures and illustrations and titles.

· Students may read introductory paragraphs and try to predict the rest of the story. They may do this for every paragraph or chapter until their predictions become very accurate.

· This could be used as a skimming or “speed-reading” exercise.

· Can be used as a note-taking technique for film viewing.

Benefits &Drawbacks:

Young, less proficient reading can more easily engage in interactive reading.
Subsequent story comprehension is increased.
The more times the students have with this method, the more accurate their predictions become.
This can be used as a writing activity to show the linking of logical thoughts.
Students are begin to notice the author’s actual writing style and are able to critique it better.
Students develop sequencing skills.
Students may try to apply this to texts that require a more thorough reading.
The words are picked by the teacher and so can be leading or misleading. The teacher must be careful to give just the right amount of information.