by Kathy Stemke

Created on: September 10, 2010

 One of the primary goals of reading is to create analytic thinkers, capable of sorting through problems to make important decisions.  When your child understands what he reads, it opens a doorway to understanding how the world works, how people relate to each other, and how children should relate to the people around them.  Instill the love of reading in your child by giving him the skills to unlock that door.

Young readers sometimes become so involved in the process of sounding out words, they forget to pay attention to what they are reading about!  Effective readers use pictures, titles, headings, and text, as well as personal experiences, to make predictions, inferences, and understand the cause and effect relationships in a story before they begin to read. 

Predicting involves more than trying to figure out what happens next. As kids find evidence to form hunches, they also ask questions, recall facts, reread, skim, infer, draw conclusions, and, ultimately, comprehend the text more fully.

A great way to introduce your child to prediction is to model the process by thinking out-loud.  Show them the cover of a book you found at the library.  Say, “Looking at the cover, I thought this book was about the love of a boy for his dog.  Maybe the dog plays with the boy.  You could use Champ’s Story: Dogs Get Cancer Too! by Sherry North.  When we use what we know to guess what will happen before we read a book, it’s called predicting.  The happy faces on the cover were my clues.”  Ask your child for his predictions.

As you read the book, stop at important points and evaluate your prediction.  Later we see the boy crying and a bandage on the dog.  Ask your child to rethink their predictions.  Ask him what he can learn from the illustrations. 

Here’s an activity for Fur and Feathers by Janet Halfman. 

Put one candy heart in a paper bag and tape it closed.

In your bag put a piece of fur, a feather, a pin cushion, a jar of slime, sequins, pinecone scales, and a plastic wing with black dots.

Tell your child that he is going to be a detective and solve a mystery.  Pointing to your own bag say, "First, let’s guess what’s in my bag." Guide him while he makes a prediction . Ask what clues he is using to make his prediction. For instance, suggest that size, lack of movement, smell, or weight might limit his guess. 

Open the bag, and

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