Making Predictions

Making Predictions

As readers of any kind of text, one of the things we do is immediately start making predictions about the content, message, audience, writer’s aims and so on. We do this by making inferences from the evidence in front of us.

Learners discuss the sort of text they are about to read. If you are reading a poem, short story or a novel, you might talk about the title, the cover, the blurb and the illustrations.

You can use the same kinds of activities before viewing a film and at various points in the text. This can be done using the cover of the DVD, or a trailer, or the opening of the film. At key points in the text the Freeze Frame, Shots in Sequence or Sound and Image exercises can be used to discuss what might happen next or how it might end.

As readers improve their skills, and become more aware of the conventions of genre and narrative, they become more confident in weighing up likely and unlikely outcomes, and in identifying the textual evidence for their predictions.

Prediction Questions

• What do you think this might be about? What makes you think so?
• What kind of film do you think this might be? What makes you think so?
• What do you think [name of character] will do next? What makes you think so?
• How do you think this will end? What makes you think so?
• What do you think might happen in the sequel? What makes you think so?