Abstract of

Playful Textbook Previews: Letting Go of Familiar Mustache Monologues

Karen Garber-Miller

Elementary teachers lead students on prereading picture walks, engage them in prediction activities, and model previewing processes, secondary teachers often fail to do much more than distribute the textbook. To help middle and high school students learn to use their content area textbooks more effectively, teachers can engage them in previewing activities designed for expository text. Students are taught to find and use the special features and learning aids in their textbooks. They become engaged in content overviews to activate their background knowledge and get them thinking about course topics from the very first day of class. This article presents eight textbook preview ideas that can be easily adapted for any textbook in any content area.

Abstract from Garber-Miller, K. (2006, December). Playful Textbook Previews: Letting Go of Familiar Mustache Monologues. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(4), 284–288. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.50.4.4