8.5.c

PREDICTIONS

Making predictions during the reading process is an important way that students can engage with their texts. Predictions can help readers test their comprehension of a text and make connections to different topics or ideas using prior knowledge.

Readers can make predictions about a text using its organizational structure. Knowing how a text is organized can help readers anticipate possible topics that will be discussed.

Organizational Structures

Cause / Effect
Problem / Solution
Topical
Chronological
Advantage / Disadvantage
Definition
Compare / Contrast
Spatial

Readers can also use the text features in a passage or article to make predictions. Text features can provide readers with useful information as they are reading.

Austin's Beloved Bridge Bats

Mexican free-tailed bat

Beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin lies the summer home of a colony of up to 1.5 million bats — the largest urban bat colony in the world! Tens of thousands of people come to Austin each summer just to witness the nightly bat flights, when these Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from under the bridge in a spectacular aerial show. Austinites love their bats so much that they even have a bat statue and an annual Bat Fest. However, the people of Austin were not always so enthusiastic about their bat friends. Before they learned how beneficial these bats could be, people feared them and wanted them exterminated!

bats emerging from under the Congress Avenue bridge at dusk in Austin

Mexican free-tailed bats emerging from under
Congress Avenue Bridge

In 1980, the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake was renovated. Beneath the bridge, workers built a new support structure that turned out to be an ideal nesting place for Mexican free-tailed bats. Over the next few years, thousands more pregnant female bats arrived every year to nest and give birth to their pups. Residents were alarmed. Many people feared the bats. They thought the bats would attack them and give them rabies. They thought they would ruin the city. As a result, the bats were on the verge of a violent eviction.

Other possible text features include . . .

tables of contents
glossaries
indexes
diagrams
charts
acknowledgments
references

Another thing that readers can use to make predictions about a text is its genre characteristics. Different literary and informational genres have unique characteristics that can affect how the story or passage is developed.

Sometimes predictions are not always accurate. When this occurs, readers can correct their predictions by using new information found in the text. In general, predictions help readers test their knowledge of a text and its different characteristics.

Making Predictions

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.c

make and correct or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures;

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