1. How Do You Predict, Visualize, and Summarize?
Feature Menu
Making Predictions
Visualizing
Summarizing a Short Story
Time-Order Words for a Summary
Your Turn

2. Making Predictions
When you make predictions, you make educated guesses about what will happen next in a story.
Who do you think will win the basketball game?

3. Making Predictions
Predictions are not random guesses. They are based on your previous knowledge, as well as on clues the author gives you.

4. Making Predictions To make the best predictions, think about
clues the writer includes that foreshadow what might happen
your knowledge of how people or animals behave
questions you ask yourself as you read

5. Making Predictions
To foreshadow is to hint at future events in a story.

6. What possible clues do you notice?
Making Predictions
Writers often provide hints, or clues, about where a story is heading.
It was an unusual morning. Serena and Tobey had convinced their mom to allow them to go camping in Black Cloud Forest—without their dad.
It was an unusual morning. Serena and Tobey had convinced their mom to allow them to go camping in Black Cloud Forest—without their dad.
What possible clues do you notice?

7. Making Predictions
When you are trying to make predictions, think about what you know.
Forests can be a little scary, especially at night.

8. Making Predictions
Another way to make predictions is to ask yourself questions as you read.
Could this detail be important?
Why did the author choose this particular detail?

9. Making Predictions What clues has the writer planted in this passage?
When darkness fell, Serena and Tobey had reached camp. Serena convinced Tobey to gather firewood while she set up the tent.
Twice, Serena thought she heard a rustling noise up the trail, but there was nothing there. Probably her brother trying to play a trick on her, she thought.
Make a prediction. What do you think will happen next?

10. Making Predictions Quick Check
Finally, Tobey came back with some firewood. He plopped down next to his backpack and began digging inside it. Soon he brought out an empty water bottle. “What happened to all my water?” he whined.
“That’s easy,” Serena answered. “It’s in your backpack.”
Groaning, Tobey held up the box of matches he had been charged with carrying. The matches were soggy.
Use the clues planted by the writer, your own experience, and your knowledge of stories to predict what will happen.

11. Making Predictions Quick Check
Finally, Tobey came back with some firewood. He plopped down next to his backpack and began digging inside it. Soon he brought out an empty water bottle. “What happened to all my water?” he whined.
“That’s easy,” Serena answered. “It’s in your backpack.”
Groaning, Tobey held up the box of matches he had been charged with carrying. The matches were soggy.
Their matches are wet, so Serena and Tobey won’t be able to start a fire. They may get cold at night and not be able to cook dinner.

12. Visualizing A deserted island . . . A mountain retreat . . .
A garden maze . . .

13. Visualizing
When you visualize, or form mental images of what is happening and where it is happening,
The river, normally clear and slow-moving, was swollen and muddy after the previous week’s rain. Its brown surface rippled and swirled as the water rushed over the rocks beneath.
. . . you bring a story to life.

14. Visualizing To help you visualize a story’s setting
Look for details that describe how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, or sounds
Jot down notes or draw a sketch of what is happening and where it is happening
Read aloud—hearing the words will help you create mental images

15. Visualizing What images do you see as you read this passage?
Serena awoke in the dark. Scratch, scratch, scratch. The noise was right outside the tent. She nudged Tobey awake and whispered for him to pass her the flashlight. Was it an animal? she wondered as she unzipped the tent’s flap. Then, she heard a hiss and a strong, sharp odor wafted through the camp site. Uh-oh. Serena switched on the flashlight to catch the beady eyes of a raccoon and puffy tail of a skunk. The two animals were struggling over a basket of fresh-picked blackberries.

16. Visualizing Quick Check
Which descriptive words help you imagine how something sounds?
Huddled in the muffling comfort of her tent, Serena shivered. Outside, the trees groaned, their limbs bending in the wind.
Suddenly, there was a flash of odd, green light, and before Serena could take a breath, an echoing boom resounded through the trees.
“This weekend,” she muttered, “was a silly time to go camping.”
[End of Section]

17. Visualizing Quick Check
Huddled in the muffling comfort of her tent, Serena shivered. Outside, the trees groaned, their limbs bending in the wind.
Suddenly, there was a flash of odd, green light, and before Serena could take a breath, an echoing boom resounded through the trees.
“This weekend,” she muttered, “was a silly time to go camping.”
The boldface words help describe how something sounds.

18. Summarizing a Short Story
What Is Summarizing?
To summarize a story is to retell its main events.
First, you read the story.
Then, you retell the story in a shorter form. 18

19. Summarizing a Short Story
When you summarize, you don’t repeat the whole story.
That would be like bringing home all of your textbooks
when you only need to study for an English test.

20. Summarizing a Short Story
To summarize, include only the most important information.
Stop at key points.
Recall the main events.
Retell the story in your own words.
Include title, author, setting, main characters, and main events.
Put your summary in order.

21. Summarizing a Short Story
To keep your summary in order, use a summary sheet.
Title and Author:
Main Characters:
Conflict:
Plot Complications:
1. 2. (Add on as many as you need.)
Climax:
Resolution:

22. Summarizing a Short Story
Quick Check
What information from this paragraph would you use in a summary of Serena’s story?
Serena and Tobey sat outside the tent, listening to the crickets. “I’m going to tell you the story of ‘The Magic Hat,’” she said. “It takes place a long time ago in a castle in the mountains of Austria. The main characters are an absent-minded king, a cruel queen, a weak prince, the ladies of the court, and a mysterious traveling magician named the Amazing Victor.”

23. Summarizing a Short Story
Quick Check
What information from this paragraph would you use in a summary of Serena’s story?
Serena and Tobey sat outside the tent, listening to the crickets. “I’m going to tell you the story of ‘The Magic Hat,’” she said. “It takes place a long time ago in a castle in the mountains of Austria. The main characters are an absent-minded king, a cruel queen, a weak prince, the ladies of the court, and a mysterious traveling magician named the Amazing Victor.”
Title, setting, and main characters. We don’t know the story’s author. 23

24. Time-Order Words for a Summary
Many stories are told in chronological order, or the time order in which they occur.
Each event is put in sequence and triggers another event.
Like links in a chain, each event moves us forward in time.

25. Time-Order Words for a Summary
Sometimes a writer will tell a story out of order to create mystery and draw the reader into the story.
The story might start in the middle and then flash back to earlier events.

26. Time-Order Words for a Summary
A good summary puts the story back in time order
to make the events clear and easy to understand for the reader.

27. Time-Order Words for a Summary
When you write a summary, use time-order words to indicate the chronological order, or sequence, of events.
Time-Order Words
first
second
next
then
until
after
later
eventually
finally
in the end

28. Time-Order Words for a Summary
Quick Check
Serena and Tobey hoped to go on a hike, but they needed to secure the campsite first. After the dishes had been washed and the food stored away, Serena put on her waterproof jacket. Then, she handed the compass and water bottles to Tobey. Next, they left a note at the campsite, describing their hiking route. Finally, Serena tucked a whistle in her pocket, and the two headed off into the forest.
Which words signal chronological order?
[End of Section]

29. Time-Order Words for a Summary
Quick Check
Serena and Tobey hoped to go on a hike, but they needed to secure the campsite first. After the dishes had been washed and the food stored away, Serena put on her waterproof jacket. Then, she handed the compass and water bottles to Tobey. Next, they left a note at the campsite, describing their hiking route. Finally, Serena tucked a whistle in her pocket, and the two headed off into the forest.
Which words signal chronological order?

30. Answer the questions below..
Apply Reading Skills
Your Turn
Answer the questions below..
1. When you make predictions, how can you avoid making random guesses?
2. Read the passage from “The Dinner Party” in your textbook. Which details in the passage help you visualize the setting?
[End of Section]

31. The End