Well Jennifer a follow up would be meeting back and turning and talking about how bringing think alouds into their instruction is going. Sharing back whole group. Offering to come in and model for teachers who are still not comfortable.
If I was working at a school that was doing ongoing training on strategy instruction I would probably begin taking them into more specific ways to use think alouds. Like some of you have been sharing- how you choose texts for specific teaching purposes. To make the instructional time of these mini lessons more powerful. Also, at a school where there is comfort to work in each others rooms (my dream for all of us), I would encourage people (possibly a grade level) to choose a common text piece, talk together about how that book could be best used for instruction (depending on the purpose), and then spend time observing each other doing the think aloud. I always remember someone teaching me- when you are in observing a peer teacher you are not there to critique the person you are there to watch the children's response to the learning opportunity and then discuss those observations afterwards. It's an opportunity for all involved to grow. You can be sure how I do a think aloud with a book would probably be very different than my teaching partner may do it. Simply because we are bringing different background knowledge (schema) to the text. But I could so learn from listening in on another's think aloud of a book I will use or have used. Probably a follow up could also be deep discussion about the importance of the modeling component in the gradual release model. Hashing out timing- how long do you model, how do you know they are ready to join you in an interactive think aloud, etc. Great things to think about Jennifer. Thanks for asking. Ginger _______________________________________________ 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.
