What types of activities can Mrs. Garcia use to increase her students’ reading skills?
Page 6: Prediction Relay
The third and final activity in each PALS session is Prediction Relay. Mrs. Garcia believes that this activity will benefit her students because she has learned that the ability to make accurate predictions is associated with improvements in reading comprehension, a skill many of her students seem to struggle with. Prediction Relay consists of the four main steps outlined in the box below. Note that Step 4 incorporates skills from Paragraph Shrinking.
| Prediction Relay (10 minutes) |
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Beginning with the stronger reader, each student completes the four steps listed below and repeats the process until five minutes have elapsed, at which time the students switch roles. The students begin reading in the text at the point at which they left off in Paragraph Shrinking. Step 1. Predict: The Reader makes a prediction about what will happen on the next half page. Step 2. Read: The Reader reads the half page. Step 3. Check: The Reader determines whether the prediction was correct. Step 4. Shrink: The Reader identifies and summarizes the main idea of the half page in 10 words or less. |
Corrective Feedback
Prediction Relay incorporates skills from previous activities (e.g., summarizing in 10 words or less), and so the Coach continues to offer the same feedback as before. Additionally, the Coach monitors and offers corrective feedback if there is disagreement about the prediction.
- If the Coach disagrees with the Reader’s prediction, he or she may respond, “That’s not quite right” and suggest a more reasonable prediction.
- After the Reader has read the text, the Coach asks, “Did the prediction come true?” The Reader responds by saying “Yes,” “No,” or “I don’t know yet.”
PALS in Action
Review the movie below to watch two students participate in the Prediction Relay activity. For the sake of time, the movie highlights only one student reading and answering the Prediction Relay questions (time: 1:57).
Transcript: Prediction Relay
Reader: “The Champ.”
Coach: “What do you predict will happen?”
Reader: “Um, I think the story’s going to be about a person that succeeds in a sport he or she likes.”
Coach: Okay. “Read.”
Reader: He had a featherweight build, but what this fifteen-year-old lacked in strength and speed, he made up for in attitude. Jason never missed a practice, even though he rarely got playing time and then only in the fourth quarter when our team outdistanced the opponent by at least three touchdowns. Even so, number 37 never so much as frowned, let alone complained, and always put forth his best effort—even if it amounted to very little.
One day he didn’t come to practice. When he didn’t show up on the second day, as his concerned coach I telephoned his home to check on him. The out-of-town relative I spoke with informed me that Jason’s father had passed away, and the family was making funeral arrangements.
Coach: “Did the prediction come true?”
Reader: Um, I don’t know yet.
Coach: “Name the who or what.”
Reader: Jason.
Coach: “Tell the most important thing about the who or what.”
Reader: Um, Jason missed a sport’s practice.
Coach: “Say the main idea in ten words or less.”
Reader: Jason missed a sport’s practice because of his father’s funeral.
(Story text from Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies [PALS] for High School Students, by L. S. Fuchs, D. Fuchs, S. Kazdan, P. Mathes, and L. Saenz, 1997, pp. A-31a–A-31b)
