Dang it’s cold for us Floridians today! Stay warm today, colleagues!
I know you know this but sometimes it helps to be reminded.
You have a college degree. Some of you have more than one college degree. In order to have a college degree you have to either be a good reader or you have to have a LOT of strategies to get you around your reading deficits.
Your STUDENTS do NOT have college degrees. They are middle or high school students. Many are not strong readers ... YET.
Even your strong teen readers aren’t as strong as your experienced, college-educated teacher-reader selves.
That’s why I need you to do something to help them out.
Think. Aloud.
Just like a kid who lives in a family of junk-food-eaters needs someone to model good eating habits, a kid who doesn’t know what good reading looks and sounds like INSIDE HIS HEAD needs someone to show him.
And guess what, Teacher? You are the perfect person!
A good reader does several things all at once that they are probably unaware of. Doing some thinking aloud will help your readers -- from 6th grade strugglers to 12th graders ready for college -- be more aware of what’s going on in their OWN heads and be more intentional, stronger readers.
So, how do I think aloud, Tracy? I can’t really just let my thoughts escape my lips. That won’t bode well for the students.
Well, a think-aloud is series of specific ways you actually do react to text. You do these things, but often, as a college-educated reader, you do them so quickly, you don’t even notice that you’re doing them!
So, the next time you’re reading some text with your students, try to slow down, notice what you’re doing, and point it out to the kids. Tell them what you’re doing and WHY you’re doing it. Just modelling can go a looong way
Here are a few ideas.
Predict
- “I bet this is going to be about …”
- “I bet that the Spartans are going to lose at some point …”
Ask questions- “Why did Empress Wu do that?”
- “What is the author talking about?”
- “What does that word mean?”
React- “Wow! That’s amazing!”
- “Well that guy just did a stupid thing”
- “No, Harry Potter! Don’t do that!”
Make connections
- “That’s like what we read about with Buddhism”
“That’s like the movie I saw last summer”
- “That reminds me of a poem we read in Language Arts class”
Make mental pictures
- “So the Olmecs are in Mexico, in the map I’m picturing”
- “I bet people in the Alps mountains freaked out when they saw Hannibal’s elephants!
- “I’m picturing that guy as tall and mean”
Read out loud to your kids once in a while and model these Think-Aloud strategies. It helps them be better readers. Be explicit in your explaining what you’re doing and why. And don’t worry about being the best audiobook worthy reader. You-the-college-educated-adult are still better than they are! And if you can do it semi-regularly with you stopping to explain your thinking aloud, can seriously impact their reading.
It’s something you do without even noticing. So slow your big brain down and show these kids how it’s done.
Have a great week -- and stay warm, Floridians!
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