Emeraldalicious

by

Victoria Kann

Emeraldalicious is a delightful fantasy with elaborate mixed-media illustrations.  Ms. Kann’s illustrations are full of objects that swirl through the air to create thrones, castles, costumes, and vehicles. About halfway through the First Reading, your reader and you will realize that the wand has magical powers. You’ll start to ask, “What will the wand create next?” This leads to a Reading Comprehension Best Practice: Making Predictions.

Making Predictions is much more than making a guess. When a reader is engaged with a text, the reader will automatically think about what will happen next. Gathering information provided by the author and illustrator, the reader begins to connect these clues to their own existing knowledge. “Ah, I think I know what is going to happen next!” Being engaged through the forming of predictions increases comprehension.

Making Predictions is a strategy needed by students as they study such subjects as math, science, and social studies. In each of these core content areas, students will be observing, connecting with their own existing knowledge; and, then, forming predictions. In Science, the predictions exist as hypotheses.  In Social Studies, your child might use evidence from history to form predictions about the effect of some new action taken by government. In Math, predictions help to determine the reasonableness of a possible answer to a problem. Like scientists and detectives, as we read Emeraldalicious, we will be testing our predictions using additional clues and recognizing possible patterns.

Skilled readers interact with the text in a variety of ways. Making predictions is one of them. Making predictions from information both in the beautiful illustrations and clever story line is great fun!