📘 You sit. The book is still shut.

What you’ll learn

1. Not a wild guessExplain that a prediction joins a clue you can point at with something you already know, using Development Matters and the IES prior-knowledge definition.A closed book can already start a guess if the cover and your own knowledge give you something to stand on. A hope with no page is not the strategy Year 1 later names.
2. Look before you turnUse a title, a cover and an illustration to say what might happen next, then name the thing you can actually see before you guess.Year 1 wants the significance of the title. Common Core Kindergarten and Grade 1 want the picture to carry a moment of the story. The straw house already told you about the wolf.
3. So far, then nextPredict on the basis of what has been read so far, including predictable phrases, what a character said, and the sequence of events.Year 1 and Year 2 share the so-far line. Predictable phrases, spoken hunger, and the hare’s nap are all clues already on the page. Cause and effect is the hinge the guess swings on.
4. Turn the page and checkTell a stated detail from an implied one, then turn the page to confirm, revise, or meet a surprise.Years 3 and 4 ask for details stated and implied. The IES panel assumes you will keep reading. Tonight, stop before the last page and notice which guess used a picture and which used a word.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Department for Education, National curriculum in England: English programmes of study — Year 1 reading comprehension: drawing on what they already know or on background information and vocabulary provided by the teacher; discussing the significance of the title and events; making inferences on the basis of what is being said and done; predicting what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far; becoming very familiar with key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales; recognising and joining in with predictable phrases. Year 2: the same so-far prediction line; discussing the sequence of events; making inferences on the basis of what is being said and done; non-statutory notes on monitoring, and on cause and effect in narrative and non-fiction (what has prompted a character’s behaviour); thinking aloud. Years 3 and 4, and Years 5 and 6: predicting what might happen from details stated and implied; drawing inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justifying inferences with evidence. Year 1 non-statutory: by listening, pupils begin to understand how written language can be structured, for example to build surprise in narratives. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study
• Department for Education, Development Matters (non-statutory curriculum guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage) — consider how and why things happen, and what might happen next; help children to come up with their own ideas and explanations. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2/development-matters
• Department for Education, Help for early years providers: Reading comprehension — help them guess what happens next; explore the book’s front and back, noticing any pictures or words that might help guess what happens inside; talk to children while turning the pages, asking what they think might happen next; using different voices, intonation and facial expressions helps children anticipate what might happen next; challenge them to point out the book’s title, or author. https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/areas-of-learning/literacy/reading-comprehension
• Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010), Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade: A practice guide (NCEE 2010-4038), Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse. Recommendation 1 (strong evidence): teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies. Activating prior knowledge / predicting: students think about what they already know and use that knowledge in conjunction with other clues to construct meaning from what they read or to hypothesise what will happen next in the text; it is assumed that students will continue to read to see if their predictions are correct. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/14
• Common Core State Standards, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.K.7 — with prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts). RL.1.7 — use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events. RL.3.1 — ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers. RL.3.7 — explain how specific aspects of a text’s illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story. RL.4.1 — refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/K/ and https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/1/ and https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/3/ and https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/4/
• Education Endowment Foundation, Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 (second edition, 2020) and the Teaching and Learning Toolkit entry Reading comprehension strategies — teachers should model strategies including prediction; extended practice that turns strategies into a bag of tricks is not supported. FFT Reciprocal Reading, an EEF-evaluated programme, has pupils use predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising on small sections of text. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/literacy-ks-1 and https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/reading-comprehension-strategies and https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/promising-programmes/fft-reciprocal-reading

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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