Pre-Reading - Build confidence with anticipation activities.

What are pre-reading activities?

Pre-reading activities are exactly what they say they are.  With the teacher’s guidance, students think about aspects of a text BEFORE they read it. 

Pre-reading activities:

• Help students to connect what they already know with the content of the text they’re about to read.

• Warm up the brain so that’s it’s ready to think more about content, format and stylistic features (language, structure, tone). Students won’t be going into that text cold!

• Build confidence.  Something students are already a little bit familiar with is less threatening.  Even if your pre-reading activities have thrown them off the scent and they’re in for a surprise (“OMG Miss, I did NOT expect that!”), there is already a relationship with the text there.

Traditional Anticipatory Reading Guides

(I prefer to call these pre-reading tables or unseen/seen tables – I like to keep things simple!  See example below.)

Teachers give students a series of statements (6-10) based on the content (specific details or wider ideas) of the text.

Students work on their own (or with a mate or in a small group) to decide if they agree or disagree with each statement.  (Alternatively, they could give a true or false answer.)

Added extras:

• I add an extra column to the right of the agree/disagree columns so that students can explain their decision if they like.  (This is a great way to differentiate, too!)

• Sometimes I like to ask a question rather than give a statement, so that extra column gives students room to write their answer.

Students then read the text and revisit their decisions.  They use the two right hand columns write an answer and note related evidence from the text.

An example of an 'Anticipatory Reading Guide'. I add the extra column to the pre-reading side to allow students to answer questions rather than just agree/disagree. Alternatively, they can use it to explain WHY they agreed/disagreed with a statement (differentiation).

The trouble with anticipatory reading guides and a hack to fix this!

The trouble with traditional anticipatory reading guides is that they can be a pain in the neck to design.  You’re always in such a rush and they can be difficult and time-consuming to design. 

TEACHER HACK!

This seems so obvious you’ll wonder why I’m calling it a hack, but I used to work slowly through the text and ‘think up’ statements about it.  This tiny tweak in strategy is a game-changer.

1. Copy sentences or phrases from the text (ones that give specific information) and paste them into your template.

2. Edit each as you need to, ensuring they make sense and that they work for an agree/disagree or true/false answer. Change a couple of things to ensure some statements are false, too. (I've done this in the example above.)

You might find you prefer to turn one or two of those copied and pasted snippets into questions.

Designing an ARG around literary features

If I want to concentrate more on literary features (especially for seniors), I use templates with headings to guide me with designing statements or questions.  You can see these below with the purple headings.  Because I usually need more room, I delete the headings after I’ve written my statements/questions. 

These examples as well as blank templates can be accessed for free from our Team FREEBIES bank (just join the team by logging in to the website) or by clicking here. (Editable, so change the headings to suit your own needs.)

Watch on YouTube!

Other options for pre-reading

We outline 20 sequenced approaching to reading in our blog here.  They include:

• Asking students what they already know about… (prior knowledge).

• Giving students a title or snippet of the text and having them make predictions about it. (I always forget to return to these after we’ve read the text! 🥴)

• Giving students the subject of the text they’re about to read and having them plan questions about it.  (Save these for later when they can answer them using the text provided. I also forget to return to these after we’ve read the text! 😱)

• Identifying and discussing new vocabulary.  It’s easier to read when those potential stumbling blocks have been dealt with.

Since then I’ve put basic ARGs, literary features and typical pre-reading ideas together to create a wee teacher guide!  With activity types across the top row and aspects I could ask about down the left-hand column, it’s a real 'go-to'.  (The examples help me think about what each combination could look like.)

I can throw half a dozen things on the whiteboard with ease and we’re good to go!  

See this guide below!

Enjoy!

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