The anticipatory reading is an interactive teaching strategy that begins with pair work or developing the story in small groups, and finally presenting it to the whole class. It encourages imaginative processes, collaboration, active participation, curiosity, sense of wonder and openness towards stories of their own and those developed by other groups.
Proposed step by step implementation of the learning activity:
- Ice breaker: Each pair or small group gets 4 key words and they are asked to develop a story using those words, then they choose a suitable title for it. Then each pair or small group presents their story to the whole class.
- The teacher reads the first paragraph of a text to the whole class (the text is, of course, connected to the previously chosen key words). The students are then asked to predict how the story develops and write down their versions.
- Each pair or small group presents their stories, then the process is repeated as many times as needed, depending on the number of parts the text is divided to or the time we have at our disposal.
- At the end of the final set of presentations, the whole class takes part in a discussion related to some questions/problems which occurred in the text, e.g. the main character’s choices or the ethics of their behaviour.