Before Reading: Using What I Know and Making Predictions

Remember from Grade 3

In Grade 3 you used a K-W-L chart, made predictions using what you know, text features and evidence, and adjusted predictions when you read new information.

In Grade 4 you will name where your prior knowledge comes from, explain how it helps, and ask questions to check your predictions as you read.

Hook: A head start

Before a hockey game, players think about the other team: They pass a lot. Their goalie is strong on the left side. That knowledge gives them a head start.

Before you read, your prior knowledge gives you a head start too. Thinking about it first means your brain is ready to connect new ideas to old ones.

Making and checking predictions

Make predictions with three kinds of clues:

1. Background knowledge: what you already know.
2. Text features: the title, cover, headings, pictures, captions.
3. Evidence from the text: what characters say and do, and what has happened so far.

Then, as you read, check them by asking questions:

• Was my prediction correct? Which part?
• What evidence confirms it, or shows it was wrong?
• What new clue changes what I think will happen?

A prediction that turns out wrong is not a mistake. It means you were thinking, and checking it helps you notice important details.

Read in parts: The Sugar Bush

Part 1

On the first Saturday of March break, Nadia rode with Uncle Ray to his sugar bush, a forest of maple trees. Blue plastic tubes ran from tree to tree like spiderwebs. A few old-fashioned metal buckets hung on the biggest trees.

"I want to taste syrup straight from the tree!" said Nadia.

Uncle Ray laughed. "We'll see. It's been freezing day and night all week. The sap needs warm days and cold nights to run."

Part 2

By noon, the sun was shining. Water dripped from the icicles on the sugar shack roof. Nadia heard a tiny plink inside one of the metal buckets. Then another. Plink. Plink.

"It's running!" she shouted. She peeked in. The sap was clear, like water. Uncle Ray let her dip a clean cup. Nadia took a sip.

"It's just water!" she said. "Well, a tiny bit sweet."

"That's right," said Uncle Ray. "It takes about 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup. We have to boil away most of the water."

Part 3

Inside the sugar shack, steam rose from a long metal pan called an evaporator. Uncle Ray fed wood into the fire underneath. Hours later, the sap had turned golden and thick.

"Long before European settlers arrived," Uncle Ray said, "First Nations peoples in this area were collecting maple sap and boiling it to make maple sugar. People have been making this sweet food here for a very long time."

That night, Nadia poured syrup on her pancakes. "Forty litres," she said, licking her fork. "Worth every drop."