One of my favorite books for teaching prediction is Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood. It is Mardi Gras time, so it is a great time of year to share this version of Little Red Riding Hood anyway! Now, I will warn you that it is NOT an easy read aloud as the whole book is written with a Bayou dialect (think “dey” for they and “dat” for that), but since it is based off of a well known story, it can lead to great predictions! (Just read it to yourself a few times before grabbing it to read in front of the kids!). Here is Amazon’s summary:
Not quite sure about your Cajun accent? You could try Bullfrog Pops! instead. In this book, each page ends in the middle of a sentence. It lends itself perfectly to making predictions! Although, some of the predictions aren’t as simple as you might think! For example, the first page says, “Once there was a bullfrog who hopped….” What do you think is on the next page? On a lily pad? Over a friend? Along the ground? No, not quite! The next page states, “….a stagecoach and rode far away.” 🙂 It gets kids to think of other possibilities, not just the most common ones we may think about. As the story continues, I find kids are more and more willing to think of crazy things, but I make them tell me how it could go along with the story. This is one of the books by Rick Walton in a series of fun word play and grammar skill series. If you haven’t seen these before, they are a MUST to check out!
I’m going to have to work on my “Cajun” accent for Petite Rouge. I haven’t read that story before. Bullfrog Pops sounds great for emphasizing that predictions have to be reasonable, but they won’t always be correct. Kids get so caught up in being “right” and lose sight of the process behind predicting. I can’t wait to try it out.
Wendy
My Cajun accent is not very good, but the book is SOOO worth it! It is a fractured tale that they haven’t all heard by every teacher they have ever had (like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), so they really get into it!
Krista, Bullfrog Pops looks like such a fun book. I think that is a great idea for getting kids to think outside of the box!
Sebrina
Burke’s Special Kids
It is one of my favorites! My son is on the spectrum and he would get so frustrated by the book at first, but it soon became a favorite because he realized how funny it is!