Thieves—a great Previewing Textbook Strategy

T— H —I— E —V— E —S

Discuss:

Think of a time when it would be good to be a thief.

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Title— Read the title.

The title states the topic and sets up the context.

Students can think about what they already know
about the subject, and what they are about to
learn.

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Headings—Search the text for bold headings and

read the headings in sequence.

These brief phrases organize the chapter or section and

provide the words for a graphic organizer. Students
can start creating their own graphic organizer and also
change the headings into questions in preparation for
tests. By putting headings together, students can
create a summary of the chapter.
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Introduction— Read the first and second

paragraphs.

This beginning part of the chapter provides the setting

and background information for this chapter. Often
goals and objectives are stated. Students can
personalize their learning by adding “I will learn…” to
the objectives. Usually the first and second
paragraphs of the chapter are the introduction.
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Every first sentence –Read every first

sentence of every paragraph.

These sentences are usually the topic sentences

and provide the most information.

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Visuals and vocabulary— Look at captions,

illustrations, charts, maps, words in bold text.

Think about the important words and what they mean;

students can list these words in their content
dictionaries. Usually the definition follows the
bolded word. Think about how the pictures or
graphs relate to the title and headings.

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End-of-Chapter questions— Read these

questions before reading chapter.

By reading the questions, students will know what

points of the chapter are important. These
questions also set a purpose for reading.

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Summary— Read the last 1-2

paragraphs of chapter.

These summary statements give students

an overview of the entire chapter. This
gives a framework for their prior
knowledge and helps sort small details
from the important events or ideas.
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 Name __________________________________
Date ___________________ Class _________
T= Title
The title of the chapter I’m previewing is _____________________________________
Two (2) things the title makes me wonder about are: (List two questions or I wonder… about the topic of the chapter

1.

2.

H= Headings
The important headings in this chapter are…

Write about 2 things you recognize or have heard of in the headings —use your background knowledge.
1.

2.
I= Introduction
The Content and Language Objectives for this chapter are:



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E= Every first sentence --Looking for Topic sentences
For each paragraph, read the first sentence. Continue until you have finished the chapter.
Write about three topic sentences you read that seem the most important to the chapter.



V= Visuals and Vocabulary --Look at pictures, charts, graphs, captions, illustrations, maps, etc.
In this chapter there are _______ important visuals.
Describe the visual that really caught your attention and tell why you think it is important to the chapter.

List all the bold vocabulary words you found as you previewed the chapter:

1. 6.

2. 7.

3. 8.

4. 9.

5. 10.

E= End of Chapter Questions

Read the end of the chapter questions and list three things most asked about in the questions.



S= Summary
Read the summary and compare it to the introduction. Keep all of these ideas in mind now as you
dive into reading the chapter.
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