Think About Think Alouds!

Hello fellow bloggers! I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Sunday afternoon (I know that I am ;-)). I can’t help but smile knowing that I have worked so hard these past couple of weeks in order to conduct my FIRST think aloud! I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous because I wanted it to be great! The more I thought about it, however, the more that I realized that this experience was not about doing a perfect job. The purpose of this assignment was to reflect and discuss what I have learned from the task. Since it was the first time I did a think aloud with an elementary student, I believe that it went fairly well. More importantly, I learned a lot about myself, as a teacher, and my student as a reader.

I chose to conduct my think aloud at the elementary school where I am placed for practicum. I am getting to know these students pretty well so I thought it would be just the right place for the job. To prepare for the activity I read through the book that was suggested to me by my classroom teacher. She found the book to be appropriate for the 3^rd grade student that I was going to work with. I was only given one female student to do the read aloud with because the other students must have been preoccupied with work. She is somewhat of a skillful reader, but definitely could improve on some reading strategies. The fictional book is called, Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell. I read through the story a couple of times to see how I would, as a reader, personally interact with it and then marked the areas that I needed to pause to discuss.  For this particular read aloud, I wanted to teach my student (and focus on) how to predict, question, clarify, connect and summarize/reflect a story. I also chose to narrow in on strategies for think aloud collaboration and gradual release of responsibility that we talked about in our Lit III class. In other words, I did a combination of a somewhat free-response think-aloud that included text tagging. This is discussed in Whilhelm’s book, Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies: Modeling What Good Readers Do.

The modeling portion of the think aloud went better than I expected! The student was very engaged in the text as I read aloud and I stopped to model my thinking at appropriate places. I think the student really noticed how I paused often to make predictions, ask/answer questions and make connections. I even modeled how to post notes to record my thinking (using different colors for different strategies), as many good readers tend to do. I think that it really benefited my student that I took the time to introduce the book and discuss some of the strategies proficient readers use to make meaning.

The think-along phase, on the other hand, was a little harder than I had hoped it to be. It took me a couple of times to get my student to finally collaborate with me during this important process. I told my student that they are welcome to chime in when they want to make a prediction, ask a question, make a connection, etc. Maybe I was not clear enough with my directions, or the student was nervous, but I had to keep repeating to the student, “Hmmmm let’s stop here, what do you think?” or “Can you help me____________ based on what we have read so far (for example make a prediction)?” Although it was very difficult to get my student to talk, once she did, it became very natural and spontaneous for her throughout the rest of the book. I noticed a great deal of confidence bloom from my reader once she realized that I was here to support her and make her a better reader. She allowed me to step back and let her try it on her own (with support). My reader was really good at making connections to real-world experiences and other texts. I would say that this strategy was definitely one of her strengths because she did it many times. She also figured out how to ask important questions throughout the text and then went on to answer them later as they came up (i.e. clarified). What my student really needs to improve on is making predictions more often, staying on task, and text tagging. This rarely occurred during our session, which is fine, but now I know what to work on with her next time. From this experience, I learned that this young reader needs more reassurance on her reading skills and more opportunities to collaborate with others to discuss ideas and strategies regarding a text.

As a literacy instructor, I need to learn how to slow down for my students. A think aloud should be a calm, natural process that is not rushed. I was short on time, which made me rush the procedure a little bit. I also had a harder time releasing the responsibility to my student because I thought that I was making her nervous, so I took over even longer than I needed to. I also should have taken some more time with the guided practice portion. I could have asked more questions to get my student thinking instead of worrying about getting my student to talk and try it on their own. Lastly, the next time I do a think aloud, I would like to work with more than one student and have the opportunity to select a more meaningful text.

I can’t wait to use the think-aloud strategy in my classroom one day! This technique will help my young readers verbalize ideas they use while reading to better their overall comprehension and strategies as readers (from the article The ABCs of Performing Highly Effective Read-Alouds). 

Thanks for reading and happy blogging!