Reading and Writing Instruction for Intermediate and Advanced Learners, Spring, 2009, Hickory, NC

I just completed the activity using the anticipation guide. This is actually one of the strategies that I am using for my assignment. I think the guide provides students with areas to focus on while reading, preparing them for what will be in the reading. Having the students complete the guide also provides a teacher with information about how well the student comprehended the text. The only problem area that I find with the guide is that students can read to find the answers instead of reading for understanding. I think that problem is solved when they are asked to support their point of view. I think this is a wonderful activity. If I were to use it in my room, I think I would have to do the activity with my students. This may be an acitivity where I presented each question on chart paper and wrote the students thoughts/explanations. After reading we can discuss several statements that might be recorded on the chart paper. I believe that first graders would be able to express themselves better with an oral discussion (where older students could probably complete the activity on their own and then discuss.

I like using a guide like this to help me keep my thoughts foucused on the reading. I have used a more simple model with my students in the past. It tends to help my students look a little deeper into what I , as the teacher, want my students to gain from an assignment. The article was interesting and true. Men and women think and do things diffrently yet end up at the same place with the same end result.

I also used the anticipation guide as one of my strategies. I think it is a great activity. I am a fast reader and sometimes I tend to miss things that are important in the reading. The anticipation guide really helped me because when I was reading I was paying attention and I had a purpose for reading. I think the lesson really fit in with the IRTA article because it definitley had clear before, during, and after reading activities and the post reading allowed the reader to connect prior knowledge with new experiences. I think the only disadvantage is that older students might try to skim the text instead of read to find the answers to the questions, and may ignore other parts of the text. I think this would be a great activity for content area reading. It would be great to use with a Weekly Reader or Time for Kids.

I really enjoyed doing the anticipation guide! First of all, it gave me insight on what I was about to read. I was not ask to read something that I was just handed without knowing anything about it. I feel that this helped to be stay focused on the article. I was able to read the aricle with ease. I was very interested in the article because I had a purpose for reading. I was able to comprehend the article with ease. When going back to the anticipation guide I was able to anwer the questions in detail with out having to look back at the article. This strategy definately helped with comprehending the article. I feel that this strategy is a fantastic strategy to use with our students.

I used the anticipation guide and I think it is a useful strategy. I liked using it before reading because it helped me to focus on what was important. Many books or articles are lengthy and this helps the reader be more engaged in the reading since there are specific things to look for. I usually do this with my students, but I usually only verbally state something to be looking for and I don’t have them write it down prior to reading, only afterwards. This guide would be a good discussion tool as well for before and after. The only disadvantage I think may be that students would not carefully read all of the assignment, but rather just the parts that answer the questions. If I were to use this with my students I think I would do the activity whole group. My students haven't got a good handle on the agree/disagree concept so it may be helpful to them to complete the activity together. On the other had I could change the format a little and just ask a "What do you think…" type of question. At any rate, I think this activity would be beneficial for students.

Reading the anticipation guide did change the way I read the article. It made me more aware of specific pieces of information I was looking for. For me, it made me read more carefully, as opposed to quickly skimming the article like I sometimes do. By quickly scanning sometimes important information is missed. The anticipation guide helps prevent this problem. The anticipation guide could be very helpful in setting purposes and goals in reading content material. Students wouldn't feel like they are just thrown into the reading. It would give them some idea of what they will be reading about and what is key. A disadvantage may be that some kids are only going to scan and focus on the key questions on the anticipation guide. For this reason, it would be important to cover all key concepts in the selection the students are reading. I will definitely use an anticipation guide in my classroom now that I have been exposed to it. It could easily be used in content areas-science, social studies, other non-fiction reading material, and even in math-learning new concepts. An anticipation guide in math may help motivate students to may more attention in the lesson. This way they could use the guide to evaluate what they have learned afterwards.

I haven't used the anticipation guideline in my classroom before. It would be hard to use at a First Grade level, this is because so much of my instruction depends on teaching students to read. However, I did find myself learning quite a bit as I completed this activity. I think it is much more useful than writing reviews of articles. It is hard to write a review without some form of questions to guide thinking and inquisitions. In some of the graduate program and especially in undergrad, I could have used more instructional strategies to writing instead of "write a response" or "journal about it". Guiding instruction is much more beneficial!

The Anticipation Guide prepared me for reading the article. I was alerted to some facts to look for, and maybe keyed in to what the article was mostly about. This is a relevant and useful strategy for students who may not be ready to discern the main ideas and supporting details of a passage. I find that filling out the guide was advantageous for my reading, and would be the same for students. The only disadvantage I see might be that students might read just to find answers, but this my be circumvented by the fact that answers must be supported with details from the reading. I might definitely use this strategy with my fourth grade students in the Language! Program. The program has mostly expository writing selections, which are chock full of new vocabulary and ideas these students may or may not have prior knowledge of. Preparing these at-risk students is a bonus to any other instruction I might give them. Returning to the guide after reading is a reinforcement of the lesson.

This strategy is right in line with the ITRA article. Prereading, Reading, and Postreading parallel the steps we just took in filling out the Anticipation Guide. Both methods allow for activation of prior knowledge. Both methods provided opportunity to add new information to existing schema. Both methods provided opportunity to return to the purpose of reading, organize new knowledge, and reflect on our learning. The application of this new knowledge is not addressed in this strategy, but presumably the student will remember what he has read better and call up that knowledge as required.

I completed the anticipation guide activity and appreciated the value of it. It is helpful for several reasons. For me, as for students in the elementary classroom, a well formed anticipation guide helps the reader to appropriate prior knowledge for the reading task at hand. It also gives the instructor the ability to highlight the components of the reading that are most important for the students to come away from the reading understanding. The guide I used tonight helped me to know what I was looking for in the article. I found that as I read the article, things jumped out at me because they had previously been addressed in the anticipation guide. One disadvantage is that students may skim an article or selection looking just for answers to the questions they know they will need to answer after reading. Doing this may cause them to lose the overall intent of the selection and impede their comprehension to some degree. Overall, I feel that the strengths of this strategy definitely outweigh the weaknesses. I have used this strategy in my classroom in the past and will continue to use it in the future.

The anticipation guide is something I use with my students in both Language Arts and Social Studies. No matter what the text, it always helps to get your gut reaction to opinion questions and test yourself to see what facts you truly know. It is advantageous because it engages you in a text and lets you get started with thinking and discussing a particular topic. It can be a disadvantage at times because students want to move quickly though a text and find answers.

I just completed the Anticipation Guide with the article "The Online Male Takes a Licking and Keeps on Clicking." I thought this was a wonderful activity to do prior to reading and post reading. I loved comparing my answers/thoughts to the author's research. I also more carefully examined what I was reading so that I would be able to answer the questions with more thought. With the prior to reading questions I thought about the men I know compared to the women I know and how they navigate through the internet. I also thought about most of those people being millenials. I think it would be more helpful to know the makeup of the subjects being tested or researched (the number of subjects tested gender based, ages, ethnicity, education, background, etc). How do other generations compare to the millenial generation? This would be an interesting question, in my opinion. I think I would be able to use this in my classroom (4th grade). Students would love using this type of activity. Not only would it make them think before reading it would also help them pay closer attention to what they were actually reading. I kept thinking of RUNNERS...reading the questions first and knowing what I need to pay closer attention to, whenever I read this passage. If you don't know it's a reading strategy (acronym) used for testing.

I tried leaving a post last night however I can't find it. Imagine that. In any case, the anticipation guide is a useful tool to tap into prior knowledge that students may have before tackling an assignment. Students have to think before they read leaving the article open for discussion. I can see where students need different stategies for individual needs when approaching new material.Most of my answers were the same as before I read the article. Keep in mind, I don't think men even come close to approaching materials the way women do much less on line or the use of the internet. In any case, I think the internet is what it is and it can be helpful or dangerous depending on how far you think outside the box.
Robin Hand

The anticipation guide allows you to focus your thoughts. I noticed as I completed the before questions my thoughts drifted to my experiences on the Internet. I thought about the first things I did when I went online and my reasons for going online. I believe the anticipation guide helps build connections before you begin reading. As I read the article I started looking for connections to support my answers to the questions.

Anticipation guides can be a useful tool in the classroom. Student will focus their attention on the important parts of the text. Also, they will have formed personal opinions or questions which will enhance thier comprehension. By answering the after questions, students can examine if a text changed how they thought about a subject or if they found support for their answers.

I enjoyed doing this activity while reading the article. I thought it really helped me to think about the article and what my predispositions were before seeing what the authors had to say. I liked reflecting on the reading in the exact same fashion afterwards. I think there would be a lot of good discussion had we had the chance to do that step of the activity.

Completing the Anticipation Guide directed my reading by focusing my attention and giving me a purpose for reading. Had I read this article in the newspaper, I would have skimmed it, not attending to the detail. But, because of the Anticipation Guide, I read more carefully. Using this guide sets a purpose for reading for students, focusing their attention on the important details of the reading. A disadvantage may be that students only focus on the statements addressed by the Guide. I have used Anticipation Guides with my second and third graders for reading math, science and social studies informational texts. My students seem to enjoy sharing what they think before reading and then comparing what they learned. I enjoy prefacing reading with Anticipation Guides.

Using the Anticipation Guide was a great way to focus my attention on the important information of the article. I wasn't concerned about remembering names (which is hard for me!). I could concentrate on important information.It contained thought provoking statements that took me beyond what was included in the text. As I reflected afterwards, the advantages were evident. Prereading, during reading, and post reading aspects were all there. Students benefit when time is not wasted with confusion about what the teacher is going to focus upon. I could use it in my classroom later in the school year (first grade) for focusing students on our author studies, insect research, or bubbles research (yes, and it is very interesting!). My conclusion is that it is a worthwhile strategy and can be implemented at all grade levels.

I enjoyed completing the anticipation guide. Doing it before the activity sparked my interest in what I was going to read. It made me think about what I was looking for when reading. After reading, the anticipation guide made it easier to reflect on what I just read. I definitely like the idea of using this with my second graders as a pre and post reading strategy!

I liked the Anticipation Guide as an adult reader and I think it would be great for students as well. It was "unintimidating" to answer questions with "disagree" or "agree", rather than a right/wrong or yes/no type of response. The format of those answers (agree/disagree) don't make you feel quite like an "idiot" if you choose agree or disagree and your choice was wrong. I know this seems simple and is really just reflective of the wording rather than the strategy itself; however, it does make a difference as a student. I also like how this strategy allows you to "preview" the material being discussed before you read, giving you some insight into what you will be reading and what you are expected to learn or gain from the assigned reading.

I read the article after I completed the anticipation guide. The guide helped me to identify and connect with what I was getting ready to read. This helped to keep me focused on what I would be reading in the article. This strategy also helped me to focus in on what the teacher found important in the article as well as what I was expected to learn from the article. A disadvantage to using this type of guide would be that as the teacher I would need to be real sure of what knowledge students already had. If I were to ask a question that students did not have sufficient enough background knowledge to answer the question, the guide would be useless for student learning. I can see me using this strategy in my class for science and social studies as well as short reading passages.

Personally I enjoy completing anticipation guides before and after reading anything. They give me prior knowledge of what an article or topic is about, and sometimes they offer a new insight to text. I think advantages to the anticipation guides are: (1) I just stated above; (2) They assist the reading in organizing their thoughts; and (3) They help to guide a student's reading after reading the text/information. The only disadvantage I can think of is depending on a student's ability level, they may not be able to get the information they need from the guide prior to reading without some sort of scaffolding. Yet, I think the anticipation guide can be used in a classroom with below level students with scaffolding, small or guided groups and careful monitoring by the teacher.