Pre-reading sets the stage for reading.  To have students prepared to read, a teacher may wish to have students connect the known to the unknown (connections standards), compare ideas or language usage (comparisons standards), be introduced to new concepts, vocabulary, pronunciation, or morphosyntax necessary to communicate their preconceptions about the information in the text to be read (communication standards), compare or contrast their own social practices and attitudes with alternative ones (culture standards), or share their understanding of German culture within the context of their own identity as Americans (community standards).

     Generally speaking, younger students in any curricular sequence will engage in pre-reading tasks more than in actual reading as the illustrations in Part 1, Unit 3 exemplified (e.g. Grade 4 Standards).  If younger than junior high level, students generally lack the experiential as well as the cognitive maturity necessary to profit from extensive applications of the Standards in reading tasks.  Below ages eleven to twelve, students are able to read for little more than specified categories of information (cultural or linguistic); they lack the background and English-language reading skills with which to grasp of discursive implications of texts that enable them to engage in the cognitively more demanding reading tasks illustrated for Grades 8 and 12 in Part 1, Unit 3.