Article: What Happens Next? Raise a Reader with Predictable Books

What Happens Next? Raise a Reader with Predictable Books

Books with words or actions that appear over and over again help youngsters to predict or tell what happens next. These are "predictable" books that help children understand how stories progress. A child easily learns familiar phrases and repeats them, pretending to read. "Pretend reading" gives a child a sense of power and courage to keep trying. And children love to figure out how a story may turn out!
Once you've collected a few predicable books—books with repeated phrases, questions, or rhymes—try out some of these reading tips:
Read your books over and over. Teach her to hear and name repeating words, colours, numbers, letters, animals, objects, and daily life activities. Once she gets to know a book, she may pretend to read it herself.
Pick a story that has repeated phrases or a poem you and your child like. Together, take on the voices of the characters. This part from "The Three Little Pigs" is a good example:
Wolf Voice: Little pig, little pig, let me come in.
Little Pig: Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.
Wolf Voice: Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!
Your child will learn the repeated part and have fun joining in with you each time it shows up in the story. Pretty soon, she will join in before you tell her.
Read books that give hints about what might happen next. Such books have your child lifting flaps, looking through cut-out holes in the pages, "reading" small pictures that stand for words, and searching for many other clues. Get excited along with your child as she hurries to find out what happens next.
When reading, ask your child what she thinks will happen. See if she points out picture clues, if she mentions specific words or phrases, or if she connects the story to something that happens in real life. These are important skills for a reader to learn.