Usefulness of Anticipation Guide

Usefulness of Anticipation Guide

Anticipation guide prepares students for what they are going to read. This strategy is an interesting and motivating way of getting students to read, by increasing their curiosity about what the text is about. Teachers are constantly faced with the problem of getting their students to read. As Michael M Hell (2004) states this strategy is important in activating students’ prior knowledge and stimulating students’ interest just before an assignment is given. Through this process students are making predictions on what they will read. Students are therefore motivated to read in an attempt to find evidence to support the predictions that they have made. Students are also motivated to read to identify whether their statement is true compared to their classmates’ response. Furthermore, students are actively involved in the learning process. They are using their own background knowledge and experiences to consider their opinion about statements on the text. Students explore new ideas by critically analysising the text in relation to what they know.

It provides an assessment tool so that teachers can identify concepts on which the class may need additional work. The students’ responses after reading give the teacher an indication of students’ strength and weakness. It also gives the teacher and indication on whether they have understood the text being studied. Furthermore, it uncovers misconceptions or strongly held beliefs that may need to be examined before, during, or after reading. The teacher gets to understand her students better, she may learn about their beliefs and culture and how they think and feel about certain issues.

 Children generally make personal connections to text. In order to know what is important, we need to guide children into deeper levels of comprehension. This guidance must take place before they read. Anticipation guides are also used during reading to help children monitor their comprehension. Anticipation guides facilitate deeper comprehension of text and help students develop metacognition (Polette, 2005). Through the use of anticipation guides, children know what to look for as they read. As they use the guides, they discover that they have an increased interest in wanting to read so that they can verify their predictions. The guides build in children a strong need to know. 

Polette uses this diagram to support his claim.

Anticipation guide can also be used to prepare for discussion of ideas to introduce text. Also, it can be used to develop writing prompts such as essay, journals and persuasive piece.