Think Alouds
Source
I have used think-alouds in Kindergarten, 3rd, and 4th grade classrooms. I have also seen this done in the Reading 350 classrooms.
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/think_alouds
Type of Strategy
Think-alouds are when the students are actually getting to hear your thought process. You literally think-aloud to model to the students how they should be reading and what kinds of questions they should be asking. As a teacher, you are verbalizing what you do as you monitor your comprehension. This is a great strategy used to show students how to get meaning from a text.
Procedure
1. Begin by modeling this strategy. Model your thinking as you read. Do this at points in the text that may be confusing for students (new vocabulary, unusual sentence construction).
2. Introduce the assigned text and discuss the purpose of the Think-Aloud strategy. Develop the set of questions to support thinking aloud (see examples below).
◦ What do I know about this topic?
◦ What do I think I will learn about this topic?
◦ Do I understand what I just read?
◦ Do I have a clear picture in my head about this information?
◦ What more can I do to understand this?
◦ What were the most important points in this reading?
◦ What new information did I learn?
◦ How does it fit in with what I already know?
3. Give students opportunities to practice the technique, and offer structured feedback to students.
4. Read the selected passage aloud as the students read the same text silently. At certain points stop and "think aloud" the answers to some of the pre-selected questions.
5. Demonstrate how good readers monitor their understanding by rereading a sentence, reading ahead to clarify, and/or looking for context clues. Students then learn to offer answers to the questions as the teacher leads the Think Aloud.
Student Thought Process
Think-alouds are important because it’s a way to model to the students how to think about their thinking. Students will begin to see and understand how to monitor their own thinking and comprehension as they read. This will also make students aware of when they need to re-read a sentence or read ahead for clarification. This will also slow the reading process down for students so they are able to monitor their understanding of the text.
Reflect/Extend
Think-alouds are useful for every grade level. Kindergarten student should be frequently exposed to think-alouds because they need to see how they should be thinking about text even as they are learning how to read. I will use think-alouds even with fourth and fifth graders because they still should be seeing how to do this with expository texts and poetry. I think you can modify the think-alouds by choosing more challenging books for the older students and different types of literature to really stretch their thinking.
I have used think-alouds in Kindergarten, 3rd, and 4th grade classrooms. I have also seen this done in the Reading 350 classrooms.
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/think_alouds
Type of Strategy
Think-alouds are when the students are actually getting to hear your thought process. You literally think-aloud to model to the students how they should be reading and what kinds of questions they should be asking. As a teacher, you are verbalizing what you do as you monitor your comprehension. This is a great strategy used to show students how to get meaning from a text.
Procedure
1. Begin by modeling this strategy. Model your thinking as you read. Do this at points in the text that may be confusing for students (new vocabulary, unusual sentence construction).
2. Introduce the assigned text and discuss the purpose of the Think-Aloud strategy. Develop the set of questions to support thinking aloud (see examples below).
◦ What do I know about this topic?
◦ What do I think I will learn about this topic?
◦ Do I understand what I just read?
◦ Do I have a clear picture in my head about this information?
◦ What more can I do to understand this?
◦ What were the most important points in this reading?
◦ What new information did I learn?
◦ How does it fit in with what I already know?
3. Give students opportunities to practice the technique, and offer structured feedback to students.
4. Read the selected passage aloud as the students read the same text silently. At certain points stop and "think aloud" the answers to some of the pre-selected questions.
5. Demonstrate how good readers monitor their understanding by rereading a sentence, reading ahead to clarify, and/or looking for context clues. Students then learn to offer answers to the questions as the teacher leads the Think Aloud.
Student Thought Process
Think-alouds are important because it’s a way to model to the students how to think about their thinking. Students will begin to see and understand how to monitor their own thinking and comprehension as they read. This will also make students aware of when they need to re-read a sentence or read ahead for clarification. This will also slow the reading process down for students so they are able to monitor their understanding of the text.
Reflect/Extend
Think-alouds are useful for every grade level. Kindergarten student should be frequently exposed to think-alouds because they need to see how they should be thinking about text even as they are learning how to read. I will use think-alouds even with fourth and fifth graders because they still should be seeing how to do this with expository texts and poetry. I think you can modify the think-alouds by choosing more challenging books for the older students and different types of literature to really stretch their thinking.