Olga any chance there could be time to teach the teachers how to think aloud as they are reading? Totally different purpose of course.
I've developed a think aloud training that I have done with teachers and now my passion is to train the parents in each of our 42 elementary schools. I've presented to parent groups in 4 buildings so far. Here's what I've posted before about training in thinking aloud. I model a general think aloud for them using the book Patrol by Walter Dean Myers or the book Rudy's Pond by Eve Bunting. I make sure that I share my connections, sensory images, questions, and inferences. I try to determine importance and synthesize along the way. I also try to do some rereading or fix ups along the way. But I do not talk about WHAT I am doing (at the time), I just read and think out loud naturally like I would in my classroom or with a child. Letting my thinking just bubble up whenever I have any thoughts. I then have them turn and talk and share what they SAW ME DOING and HEARD ME SAYING as I was reading the text. They share back whole group. I am careful to bring up the things they don't notice. Some of the comments shared back are: -You stopped along the way to say what you was thinking out loud. -You told us what you could picture in your mind when you read ....... -You made the story come alive because you read slow and told us your thoughts. -You helped me feel the story. -You asked a lot of questions. -You were figuring out things that weren't so obvious. ETC. Often they say they couldn't believe how much more they wanted to pay attention. Then I pass out to the tables the picture books that I use when training on thinking aloud. You can find my list on our TEACHING TOOLS page at: www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/PictureBooksforOlderReadersfromGinger.doc You can build your own list with emotionally charged books. I have found others since typing up that list. To find the books I spend time at the public library in the place where the picture books for older readers are kept. I stand in front of the stacks and pull out the thin spined books and read them. It is amazing what is out there. Every time I do a training I check them all out. My husband (also a teacher) and I are getting really fast at remembering where they are shelved. I have never lost a book once. And I check out about 30-40 books a time. Eve Bunting is a sure bet for deep text. I'm sure you have other favorites as well. I have them EACH pick a book and then get a partner (if the group is huge I have the partner group pick ONE book). I give them the following directions. This is always hard for adults. They want to make it into a discussion and that is NOT my purpose for this exercise. I want them to simply MODEL (the reader is the one doing the work) a think aloud. I tell them that at first this may not be easy and it may feel uncomfortable. But all they have to do is read and pay attention to when they have some thinking. When that happens, they are to STOP and share that thinking. I tell them they can start out by saying, "I'm thinking......." if that helps. They are NOT retelling the story. They are simply sharing their thinking as they are reading. Whatever bubbles up into their brains or comes from their heart. 1. Person A goes first with his/her book. Person B is to represent the class. For this exercise Person B is NOT TO INTERACT with Person A- just "receive" the thinking. Person B represents the class of students paying attention to what the teacher is doing and saying. They are not interacting at this point. Person A reads and shares his/her thinking as he/she is reading. 2. When about 10 minutes have gone by I tell them to switch and Person B now will do the think aloud with his/her book. Person A is to "receive" the thinking. Person B reads and shares his/her thinking. (Often they want to continue in the first book rather than switch to the second book. Mostly because the books hook you.) 3. After 10 more minutes (and yes they often do not finish the books and BOY do they want to!!!) I have them turn and talk and share how it FELT to do the thinking outloud. We then share back whole group. There are always comments on how it felt very awkward and they didn't like it. I share about my own early attempts at thinking aloud and how I felt the very same way. I ask them to give it a try. That in their classrooms with their students as the audience (rather than another adult) it is less scary and that the value far exceeds the discomfort. I tell them to remember that the children have no idea what a think aloud is supposed to sound/look like so they can't go wrong. With teachers of older students I tell them that if their students do not have experience with think alouds and interactive think alouds (where the children and the teacher both share the thinking work) they could have more resistance. But that's when carefully choosing the text can hook the listener. Cris Tovani (author of "I Read It, but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers" and "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12") provides great examples of how to reach the resistant older student. Most of us realize that those kids have not been taught to think as they are reading yet. But most of them are still teachable. I've mentioned before how I choose VERY emotionally charged books. I do this on purpose so that they will have something to think about. I warn them that some of the books are tear jerkers. (Many times there are tears and I always make sure I have a box of tissues!) I remind the teachers that we know kids can comprehend at a higher listening level than they can read so to be sure to consider a variety of text levels. When I can, I do provide a time to think aloud in picture books, chapter books, and nonfiction and poetry. Usually I don't have the time but I wish I did. One thing I have tried to add is to model how to think aloud with a Clifford the Big Red Dog book. As we know, we should be thinking through all our reading and to show a think aloud with a less intense book is helpful too. Obviously many of the books I use with training adults would not be age appropriate for all grades. I then have them turn and talk about how they now envision themselves using thinking aloud with their students. I field any questions and we are off. If you will be doing further work on comprehension strategy instruction in the future you can then have them practice specifically sharing their "I wonders" or what the visualized as they were reading. But for this training my purpose is to get teachers comfortable with "general" thinking aloud. Whatever comes bubbling up. ---------------- I hope this makes sense. It is really rather simple and from the feedback, the impact is POWERFUL. Modeling "general" think alouds was something I never did when I first started this teaching. I read MOT and jumped right in to my first strategy study: schema. I did think alouds with connections. Thinking aloud was awkward for me for a very long time. I had to preread the books and mark where and what I was going to say. But that was what I need to do and I think it was the right thing to do. I then moved to just marking the stopping places and now after several years, I can pick up just about any book and do a think aloud "cold". Sometimes that's when I do my best thinking. Now when I look back over my journey into this teaching I've learned to do "general" think alouds and my study on metacognition before jumping into a strategy study. To me it shows the integration of all the individual strategies. What I believe is our ultimate purpose. We use the strategies as tools to help us make meaning and which ones we use depends on the text demands and our own previous knowledge. So a "general" think aloud (or interactive think aloud) brings my strategy instruction full circle. Start with the end in mind. Ginger moderator _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
