What is the purpose of making predictions during guided reading-thinking activities?

Making predictions during guided reading-thinking activities serves to focus reading on confirming or disproving those predictions. This process encourages active engagement with the text, as students use their prior knowledge and contextual clues to hypothesize about the content, character motivations, or potential outcomes within the narrative.

By predicting, learners create a framework that guides their understanding and comprehension as they read. As they encounter new information, they can adjust their predictions, which deepens their critical thinking skills and enhances their ability to synthesize information. This interaction with the text fosters a dynamic learning environment where students are continually questioning and reflecting, rather than passively absorbing information.

The other choices, while related to aspects of reading comprehension, do not capture the primary educational value of making predictions in this context. For instance, assessing prior knowledge contributes to the predictive process but is not the main purpose of predictions themselves. Similarly, keeping students passive and enhancing memorization do not align with the active and interactive approach that predictions embody. Thus, focusing on the confirmation or disproof of predictions is integral to developing deeper literacy skills.