Hmmm... My own personal definition of modeling was showing vs. telling or describing. I guess where I remain confused is that I always thought thinking aloud was a way to model how readers think.When you say aloud what you are thinking, aren't you showing (rather than telling) how readers think, i.e modeling? When you do a read aloud of a great book like Ruby Bridges and say things like "When I read this page, I wonder why the crowd looks so angry?" aren't I showing, through a think aloud, a model of how readers think? As I struggle with this, I am wondering if Ellin might be saying here is that it isn't enough to stop here...we need to show what we do with our thinking....what is the impact of it...how does it change us. What I can't understand is why the distinction between think-alouds and modeling? Unless it is just to highlight the importance of taking the next step with kids... Jennifer In a message dated 4/13/2008 5:59:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On page 68, Ellin writes: "To think aloud is to show how readers, writers and learners think, but to model is to show and describe how readers, writers and learners live." What is your reaction to this thought? It's interesting that Jennifer says she's been struggling with this idea as it has been in the forefront of my thinking as well. Last week another teacher and I had a great conversation about the modeling/think aloud idea and the differences in each. We decided to explore that with some 3rd graders. We sat everyone in a circle and she and I sat across from one another. We told the kids that we were both reading the same book and asked them to watch us and observe what took place. We framed it something like "notice what we do as readers and thinkers". We then proceeded to talk about the book. To make a long story short the kiddos noticed all kinds of things that we did, including a student who said, "I noticed that you both said the book had some hard stuff in it, but you both were laughing and having fun. I never thought about how hard work can be fun, but now I'm thinking that happened to me when I was doing my research project. " Another student said, " I noticed that sometimes you interrupted each other when you were talking. Sometimes your ideas just have to pop out and you know you should wait but you're too excited and you can't keep that thinking bottled up till it's your turn." Finally, one of our "lowest" kids ( by Dibels standards) said, " I noticed that you used all those strategies we've been learning about. But I thought it was cool that you bounced back and forth from one to another all the time. They (strategies) are really working like a team." There were lots of other exciting observations as well. We ended our time together by asking kids to celebrate the quiet and think about what they do as readers and thinkers and to jot their ideas down in their journals. The teacher and I are looking at their thoughts and thinking about how we can continue to "model" our literate lives to these kids. Lisa **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850) _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
