Today's reading tests ask more of young students than the old bubble-in multiple choice ever did: they ask children to think critically, analyze the text, and explain their reasoning. The good news is that the first skill tests look for — making a prediction — is also one of the easiest to teach at home.

Active reading starts before the first sentence

Skilled readers engage with a text before they read it. They look at the title, glance at the pictures, and ask: what will this be about? That prediction creates a mental hook the story then hangs on.

This is part of a bigger habit called marking up the text — noticing and recording your thinking as you read. The seven key marks are:

1. Predict — guess what the story is about
2. Connect — relate it to your own life
3. Question — wonder about the text
4. React — notice your feelings as you read
5. Visualize — make mental pictures
6. Summarize — condense the main ideas
7. Infer — read between the lines

Predictions are the natural one to start with, because your child already makes them constantly — every time they guess what happens next in a movie.

Teach it tonight with titles

Start with movies and TV shows. Say just the title and ask, "What do you think this is about? What makes you think that?" Then move the same game to books:

Before reading any story, have your child read the title and ask: "Based on the title, what do you think this story will be about?"

Take "Jack and Jill." A weak prediction is "It's about Jack and Jill" — that's just repeating the title. Coach your child to use reasoning instead: "Jack is a boy's name and Jill is a girl's name, so this story is probably about a boy and a girl." That's a real prediction — it uses evidence and it can be checked.

If the book shows a picture, refine the prediction with it: "The cover shows two kids on a hill, so maybe they go on a walk together."

For older students, titles get more abstract. "The Lightning Thief" tells you almost nothing directly — the reader has to lean on the image, the back cover, and what they already know. That's exactly the skill a reading test measures with its harder passages.

Why it matters so much

Predicting does two things at once: it builds interest (the child wants to find out if they were right), and it creates a mental outline of the author's ideas before reading begins. Children who predict before reading naturally check their thinking during it — the seed of every other active-reading strategy.

The earlier a child makes prediction a reflex — before every book, every chapter, every test passage — the easier all the other strategies come. It costs thirty seconds, and it starts tonight.