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.