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Pre Reading Strategy
POSSIBLE SENTENCES

Overview:  This strategy uses some of the vocabulary that will be encountered in the text.  Students will be encouraged to make predictions about the text’s content.  In addition to motivating students to read the text and to determine the accuracy of their predictions, Possible Sentences (Moore & Moore, 1986)

encourages students to think about the relationships among a variety of words from the text.

Steps: 

1. List the important core vocabulary for the text on an overhead or board.  These words should be able to be defined by their use in the selection.

2. Ask students to select words from the lists and, for each pair, to write a sentence that they think might appear in the text.

3. Have students share their sentences with another student.  Pick several students to put sentences on the board.  Underline or circle words they used from the list.

4. Ask students to examine the sentences and discuss the predictions.

5. Have students read the text to verify the accuracy of their sentences.  Class discussion would involve the verification of their predictions.  Invite students to offer a corrected sentence(s).