Reading skills: Predicting the author’s ideas

One way to read effectively is to predict. Predicting involves thinking ahead while reading and anticipating information and events in the text, anticipating the general direction in which the author is going. Effective readers use pictures, titles, headings, and texts, as well as personal experiences to make predictions before they begin to read.

Take a look at the title of Text A:

Women at the management level

From the title we can predict that the text will probably give the information to the following questions:

1. Who specifically are mentioned in the text?

2. What has happened to the women at the management level?

3. How are the women at the management level presented in the text?

4. Why does the text talk about women?

5. Does the text also mention men? Why or why not?

6. What is the significance of this topic to readers?

7. What’s the intention of the author for writing this article?

By making predictions about the text before, during and after reading, we use what we already know and what we suppose to make connections to the text.