Being able to “predict” is an important skill to develop in emergent readers. It allows children to figure out an unfamiliar or phonetically irregular/complex word by thinking about what would make sense in that context or a probable string of words eg ” —- upon a time”. Children with good prediction skills will predict that the missing word is “once” even if they are unable to sound it out ( “once” is phonetically irregular, after all).
Learning to predict starts with guessing games and activities and should begin long before children are learning to read. Children love these sort of games and activities so it is a pretty easy skill to encourage ;).
I decided to create two activity sheets to liven up our prediction lessons this week. My class had lots of fun with these I can tell you. It certainly stimulated lots and lots of chatting and prediction
On Monday I asked my class to “predict” and “draw” four likely contents of my lunchbox. It was hilarious! I eat with my class a few days a week inorder to model healthy eating practices. This meant that everyone had an opinion on what I would be dining on!!
It seems that bananas regularly feature in my lunchbox. There was disbelieve among many when I revealed that I had not packed one that day!!! I have to say this activity was so much fun that I will be doing it every year from now on.
The following morning my pupils were paired off and invited to predict the contents of their partner’s lunchbox. I had warned them the previous day that this would happen. I swear there a few “smart ones” were cataloging contents the previous day in anticipation!
Have fun. We sure did!
Miss Mernagh 🙂
missmernagh.com 
They wouldn’t have much trouble predicting what’s in my lunch box!!!……….but it is a great idea.