Preview - Predict - Confirm

I love this strategy for activating students' prior knowledge and for exposing them to vocabulary they will encounter in a text.

The strategy Preview, Predict, Confirm (PPC) is designed to build content-specific vocabulary by requiring students to think about and use language of a discipline. Through the use of PPC, students are accessing their background knowledge as well as building background knowledge on the topic of a text. Students are exposed to the vocabulary of their peers and are encouraged to pay close attention to the author's language while reading or listening to the text. Students learn from their peers, who may have different experiences and other knowledge of a topic.

                       --Ruth Helen Yopp & Hallie Kay Yopp, 
                                                  The Reading Teacher (Vol. 58, No.1, September 2004)

BEFORE READING 

1. Preview key pictures in the text and important terms/vocabulary.  

2. Sort words into meaningful categories and label the categories. 

3. Predict what the text will be about. 

AFTER READING 

Confirm predictions while reading and discuss predictions and new ideas after reading. Add new words after reading the text.

Student written responses in my 4th-grade classroom in 2019: 

Teacher written responses in my 2nd-grade classroom in 2017 

Word Study/Vocabulary

The Frayer Model is a graphic organizer for building student vocabulary. This technique requires students to define target vocabulary and happy their knowledge by generating examples and non-examples, giving characteristics, and or drawing a picture to illustrate the meaning of the word. This information is placed on a chart that is divided into four sections to provide a visual representation for students.

From The Reading Teacher Vol. 58, No. 1 September 2004

Preview - Predict - Confirm

Preview

• The teacher shows pictures from an informational text to the students.

Predict

• The teacher asks the class for several word predictions and reasons for those predictions.

• The students work in groups to record additional predictions on blank cards.

• Each group sorts its words into meaningful categories and labels each category. Category labels are shared with the

entire class.

• Each group selects from among its cards a word that the group members think every other group will have, a word

the members think no other group will have, and a word the members find interesting. These words are written on

sentence strips, and a representative from each group shares the three words.

• The teacher leads a discussion about the words that have been shared, including their possible context in the book.

Confirm

• The students listen to or read the book, confirming predictions as the text is read.

• The students compare the author’s selection and use of words with their own and discuss the benefits of previewing a book in this way.