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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