Motivate Any Child to Read by Predicting

This article is about different types of predicting that are easy and fun to do. All you need is yourself, your child and a book that your child has chosen, hasn't read yet and knows nothing about.

Predicting is an important reading skill to help children develop because:

1 It helps kids understand what they're reading
2 It gets them talking about what they're reading
3 It helps them think more deeply what they're reading
4 It's fun because people's predictions are rarely the same!

Prediction 1 ... works for both fictional books and non-fictional books

You need to go first to model this to your child.

Before you or your child read a new book, look at the cover and say what YOU think it will be about. Justify your prediction by referring to the title, what you see in the picture on the cover, who the author is, what the blurb on the back says etc.

Then ask your child to say what they think it will be about and why.

Write down both your predictions somewhere (to look back on a bit later and compare with the book.)

You or your child should then read enough of the book to get a feel of what it's about.
(See http://www.roundtreeresources.com/toodifficult for free info on how to manage or share the reading if your child is finding it difficult.)

You can either review your predictions then or wait until you've finished the book. Either is fine but it's important to follow through and do it.

Prediction 2 ... works for fictional books

At a point in the story where the problem has been introduced and developed a bit, stop reading and put the book down.

Again, you need to lead this:
You decide where to stop reading
You model the next prediction

You are going to predict what's going to happen next or what the main character will do next, based on what has happened so far. And, again, you should make the effort to justify your predictions because this will encourage your child to stretch their thinking too. A 'junior-type' prediction + justification might be something like:
'I think Joe will climb the nearest tree because he's not going to be able to outrun that crazy horse.'

Another fun way to do this type of prediction is for both of you to sketch (independently) a quick drawing of what you think will happen next. Don't show your drawings to each other until after you've read a lot more...or reached the end.

Prediction 3 ... works for both fictional and non fictional books

This third prediction is one of my personal favourites. It's great for getting your child to think about authors as well as use their imagination. When you get to the end of the story, say to your child (while showing them the blank inside back cover or a blank page inside the back cover),

'If I was the author (say their name) and there was one more page, I would go on and say....' (or 'go on and write about...')

'What do you think?'

For fictional books in particular, ask (and share what you think):
'What do you think the characters will do next?' (Even if the book has concluded 'happily ever after' there are endless possibilities for what might happen after that!)

For non-fictional books in particular, ask (and share what you think):
'What other information would you include here if you had to include just one more page to get this book published?'

When you're finished... if you haven't done this already... look back over your earlier prediction/s and see how they compared with the book.

A final note: Some children can get upset if they're not right. You should stress that it doesn't matter whether the predictions are accurate or not because you aren't inside the author's head and that what you are really doing is exploring the possibilities. And make sure YOUR predictions aren't always right!

Have fun!