Before reading a text with your learner, ask her to predict the content of the text. You might make some notes about this and then discuss it together after the reading. If you haven’t read it before, join in guessing and see who is right.
Predicting content of text based
on titles or visuals.
Students can use the title, headings, photos or other
visuals to predict what they are going to read about. Regardless of whether
they guess correctly or not, studies have shown that if readers (native
speakers or language learners) have predictions in mind when they are reading,
their comprehension is greatly improved.
Predicting content based on
knowledge of topic
There will be
times when the students will already have enough knowledge about the text topic
or text type to make predictions about what they will read about. If the text
topic is not evident from the title of the text, you can tell her what it is
about and discuss what they know about the topic before making predictions
about the text.
Predicting content based on genre
For text that is a specific genre, you could brainstorm
characteristic content. For example, if
the genre was a film review, they would expect to get a synopsis of the plot, a
description of the main characters, some mention of the visual aspects of the
film, an assessment of the quality of the film, and so on. After reading the text, you can discuss whether
the features you expected were there.
Reading or listening to background information
In some cases, learners may lack the cultural knowledge to
understand crucial aspects of the text. If native speakers would have this
knowledge before reading, then it would make sense to try to give them that
cultural knowledge before they read.
Discussing ideas that appear in the text
With some texts, the students may not need any extra background
information but a discussion of the ideas that will appear in the text will activate
any knowledge they already have on the topic. This is commonly known as
activating schemata. The usual way to do this is to prepare one or more
questions for students to answer relating to the topic of the text.
Brainstorming vocabulary that might appear
Another pre-reading strategy is to brainstorm words that you
think might appear in the text based on the title, headings, visual, background
knowledge, etc. If you are working in a
group you could make this a competition by awarding points for each word identified
pre-reading that appears in the text.
(adapted, with thanks to
K Lackman – Reading Strategies)
