Predicting - Probable Passage

I learned about Probable Passages first by experience and found it to be really engaging. This strategy will help students to develop the important skill of predicting. All good readers predict what will happen next as they read. You may have experienced this as you watch a suspenseful action movie and you just know "if he goes in there he will be caught". This is the same kind of predicting good readers do and just what we want your reader(s) to become good at. Here is how to help them work on this particular reading skill:

1. Pick 7-12 words or phrases from the book and list them on a piece of paper. These words should reflect the characters, setting, problem, and outcomes, as well as some unknown words that are critical to the theme of the selection. I have included some words that may work in general for the Little Red stories but please go to the books yourself and pick a few more important phrases from each specific book.

• Little Red Ridinghood:
• Big Bad Wolf
• Little Red
• Grandma
• "Grandma, what big teeth you have!"
• "She ran away"
• He was hungry
• forest

2. Put each word into one of the following categories:

• Characters - the people who are in the story
• Setting - where the story takes place
• Problem - what sorts of trouble are the characters having?
• Outcomes - how are the problems resolved?
• Unknown Words

If you want to use a template worksheet to help your reader organize his or her thoughts you can find one here. The truth is that you can just talk about these steps, asking "which of these are the characters? Where does the story take place? Can you tell what problem there will be in the story?" and so on. Remember, we want our readers to enjoy themselves; pleasant reading experiences encourage more reading!


3. Now come up with a Gist statement. This is a statement (one sentence usually) that gives us a prediction for what the story is about. It is kind of like a summary of the story before you read it. Begin the gist statement with "I predict this is about..." As you read you discover if your prediction was correct!

4. Any words that went in the Unknown category (under step 2) or any questions that came up while you examined the list of words and phrases you can look for as you read the story. Your reader(s) may be able to answer their own questions!

Please consider viewing page 13 & 14 of this article about literacy tips for 7th-9th graders. Yes, the content is much more advanced, but the completed template will give you a good idea of how this activity should look.