COMMUNICATION TIP
The Importance of Making Predictions
The ability to predict is a language and thinking skill children begin to learn early in life.
Reading - Motivating children to read may be as simple as giving them a purpose for reading,
something that making predictions will accomplish. Having your child make predictions before
reading a book is not just a fun thing to do, it can be a real learning opportunity as well. As long as
your child has not yet read the book, they can make predictions about the story. Then, while
reading the story, your child will work on comprehension and critical thinking skills in order to find
out if their predictions were correct.
Good predictions use the clues in the title, front page picture and illustrations inside the book to
make a guess about what the story is about. Having your child include a character and an action or
main event in their prediction is a good way to improve their sleuthing skills. Another option for
making a prediction is to have your child do a picture walk through the book to find out what they
can from the pictures. This activity does not involve any reading. Once your child has looked
through the book, guide them to make informed predictions about the story.
While reading you can also ask your child “What do you think will happen next?” “Who do you think
ate the cookie?” “How do you think this story will end?”… These types of questions help them learn
to monitor their understanding of the story while thinking ahead to the next part. If your child is
able to make good and fairly accurate predictions while reading, chances are they comprehend the
story as well. Detectives, just like readers, make predictions all the time. Have your child begin to
see the connections between what they do as a reader and what they can do as a detective. Below
are some ways you can encourage your child to put their prediction skills to work as a detective.
Family Favourites - Have your child predict the answer to a specific question such as “What is our
family‟s favourite game?” “What is our favourite television show?” “What is our favourite dessert?”
Help them write down their prediction. Then have your child ask each member of the family for an
answer. Have your child record the responses in a special Detective Notebook or simply mark the
results on a piece of paper. Finally ask your child to compare their prediction to the actual answer.
Guessing - Estimation is often very similar to a prediction. In both cases, your child will be working
to make a good guess about an answer. As with „Family Favourites‟ you can have your child write
down their answer in the Detective Notebook or on a piece of paper. You can use such vocabulary
words as estimate, predict, collect evidence, determine clues, analyze and prove. You can have your
child make guesses on:
How many steps it is to the mailbox from your front door
How much your cat weighs
Whose footprint is in the garden
How many cupcakes will the cake mix actually make
When your family goes to the shopping mall, carnival or weekend event you sometimes see contests
to guess or predict. For example how many ping pong balls there are in the pool or how many jelly
beans there are in the jar. These are fun activities for the whole family to participate in. You can
even create something like this at home by putting some common household item such as macaroni in
a jar and having everyone guess the quantity. You could even make this a weekly activity.
Predicting Outcomes – You can also challenge your older children by having them answer questions
that require them to predict. For example you could ask them to predict possible outcomes such as:
Mom went to the checkout and discovered she left her wallet at home. What did she do
next?
What might happen if you ran across your yard and did not see a rake?
You dropped an egg, a ball and a spoon on the floor. What happened to each one?
These activities can be fun for your child. By using predictions you will be having them make
important connections between predicting, reading, critical thinking and science.
These communication tips provided by the South East Speech and Language Service Team - AHS