Motivating Student Interest With the Imagine, Elaborate, Predict, and Confirm (IEPC) Strategy

Abstract

In order to make predictions about a text, students must have prior knowledge or experiences about the topic and a means or a reason to retrieve this latent information and knowledge. The Imagine, Elaborate, Predict, and Confirm (IEPC) strategy takes the predictive process back to its origins in the imagination and extends it throughout the prereading, reading, and postreading stages of a lesson. The strength of IEPC appears to be in the whole‐class participation aspect, which enables the teacher to guide, focus, and direct classwide responses and discussions, thereby capitalizing on the collective experiences of the students. The IEPC strategy has been sampled in over 30 classrooms ranging from kindergarten to middle and high school levels. While its elements are not new to teachers, the concept of having a tangible, visual framework to guide the predictive process throughout the reading seems to be beneficial for both teachers and students. The IEPC strategy has potential as a means to improve understanding and to motivate students to want to read assigned texts, both expository and narrative.

The role of unconscious information processing in the acquisition and learning of instructional messages

“…The use of appropriate visual materials (i.e., realistic pictures depicting the contents of a text) can also be beneficial to educators for identification of teaching tasks, such as line drawings for teaching activities (Kleinman & Dwyer, 1999), and to those students who have basic knowledge for the tasks (Lowe, 1996;Wood & Endres, 2004).…”

“…The visual system thus enhances memory processes, visual abilities, and thinking skills, thereby increasing the effectiveness of teaching and learning performance (Hegarty & Just, 1993;Levie & Lentz, 1982). Wood and Endres (2004) suggested that as students develop their visual ability to imagine, elaborate, predict, and confirm, they grasp the meaning of information more comprehensively. This is because the system allows students to acquire and make sense of information unconsciously, providing an alternative to conscious information acquisition (Winn, 1987).…”

“…These illustrate relevant scenarios that raise the emotions of students and force them to act unconsciously (McCann & Garcia, 1999). The aids are, therefore, tools used to improve teaching performance by motivating students to want to read assigned texts, both expository and narrative (Wood & Endres, 2004). Kleinman and Dwyer (1999) showed reliable evidence that specific visual aids promote achievement of learning, particularly when learning a concept.…”

Imagination and Literacy Instruction: A Content Analysis of Literature within Literacy-Related Publications

“…While some researchers' definitions or references suggest visual images lead to imagination (Maine, 2013;McTigue, 2010;Serafini & Moses, 2014), other researchers suggest multi-sensory input affects imagination (Douville & Algozzine, 2004;Hannaford, 2012;Roser et al, 2004;Wood & Endres, 2004). Hannaford suggests imagination forms a bridge between the reader's senses and thoughts (Hannford, 2012).…”

Enhancing Reading Comprehension Through Explicit Comprehending-Strategy Teaching

“…The 'RIDER' procedure (Clark, Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, & Warner, 1984) teaches students to read the first sentence or section of the text, make an image of it, describe the image, evaluate it for its completeness and repeat the steps for the following sentences. The IEPC strategy (Wood & Endres, 2005) teaches a four-step procedure as one reads: to imagine, elaborate, predict and confirm.…”