Probable Passage
Probable Passages (Wood, 1988) is a pre-reading technique that integrates prediction, summarization, vocabulary instruction, and story frames. Using this strategy as a pre-reading activity not only introduces readers to vocabulary they will encounter, but it also provides a powerful incentive to read and discover that the story follows the outline that has been suggested.
·
Implementation
1. Select important terms and concepts from the text.
2. Have students categorize these according to the story or the text.
· Narrative elements include setting, characters, problems, outcomes, unknown words, to discover.
· Expository elements include who, what, when, where, why, how.
3. Have each student write a gist statement by making a prediction about the plot of the story or the main idea of the text using as many vocabulary words as possible.
4. Have students read the story or text and compare their gist statements to the actual version.
5. Then have the students modify their predicted story or text to make it a summary paragraph.
·
Classroom Management
1. Choose a list of 8 to 14 key words from the reading and present them to the students.
· Some words should have obvious connections, some can encourage disagreement, unknown words that can be figured out in the reading.
2. Working in small cooperative groups, ask students to put the words into the boxes on the probable passage worksheet.
3. After grouping the words into categories, students must then formulate a “gist statement.”
4. Lastly, students should generate a list of things they want to discover about the reading.
5. Probable Passage Templates
· Probable Passage Non-Fiction Template
· Probable Passage Non-Fiction Template : Word doc.
