Learning to Think-Aloud

This past week has been one of great growth for me as a teacher.  I got the opportunity to videotape one of my first lessons and watch it back, all the while thinking about myself as a teacher- strengths and weaknesses.  Another great element to this experience was the fact that I decided to try out a think-aloud for my videoed lesson. My literacy learning class has been talking a lot about think-alouds and their power in the classroom.  Until now, I had never done a planned think-aloud and was nervous I wouldn't know what to say or how to execute in a helpful way to students.

I decided that one good way to prepare myself was to spend the week leading up to the think-aloud, thinking a lot about my own thinking while reading.  It is amazing the things you learn about yourself as a reader when you engage in metacognition and make it a point to focus on your thinking.  This preparation was incredibly helpful, and I plan to continue thinking about my own thinking in order to inform later think-aloud sessions.  For the lesson, I led a small group of 6th graders through a picture book text, while scaffolding their use of a graphic organizer to record their thinking while reading.  I provided a graphic organizer to make their monitoring of thinking before, during, and after reading permanent and public.  This, monitoring thinking during reading, is a strategy that we are working on in the classroom, and I wanted to provide a little more instruction and support in our small group.  I chose the book The Three Questions: Based on a Story by Leo Tolstoy, written by John J. Muth.  This text has a complex message but an easy to follow sequence which I felt would support my students early adaptation of the strategy and graphic organizer.  As I read the text aloud to the small group, I stopped at places in the text where I wanted to stress my thinking during reading. I chose places where I could think-aloud about how my thinking had changed from the beginning of the book. I also chose spots where I was confused or had questions.  During these short discussions I asked students to offer suggestions for strategies we could use to "figure it out". They offered ideas like, rereading, reading on to clarify, and looking at the pictures.  These discussions and thinking-aloud about strategy served as a great model for students to do in their own reading.  I could tell by the middle of the text they were beginning to record their own thinking on the graphic organizer and had a lot of thinking to share with the group.  This should have been my clue to let them take the reigns, but I continued to talk, read, and think-aloud.

I know that one of the most important elements of the think-aloud is the gradual release of responsibility stressed by J. Wilhelm in his book, Improving Comprehension with Think Aloud Strategies.  This is where I struggled.  Having a limited amount of resources (only one book) I had an issue with handing over the text to allow students the opportunity to read and think-aloud.  Looking back the students were recording their thinking on their graphic organizer but their voices were not being heard in the group setting until sharing time.  This did NOT help create a feeling of exploring the text together.  Being able to watch the lesson and think-aloud session on video helped me see where I could have gradually release responsibility to the students and this has informed my instruction for next time.  Being the first time I tried this out, I had a feeling this would be the area I would struggle the most.  However, I am more aware of my students abilities and areas I can work on for next time.

Doing a think-aloud is tough the first time and I assume the next couple times will be as well.  Over time, I can see this becoming like second nature to me.  I think this is the ultimate way to model thinking and strategies for students.  It also has helped me understand my own thinking process which will help me relate to my students in the future.  I found the resource below very helpful while learning about and preparing for my first think-aloud.  While this graphic was not included in Gretchen Owocki's text it does organizer the thinking stems by the reading strategies mentioned in her book, Comprehension.  This is a helpful resource for me while still getting used to the think-aloud format.

I would like to end by commenting on the importance of book choice.  This semester, one of my professional goals is to get better at finding, choosing, and implementing great mentor texts in the classroom.  In the article Examining Multiple Perspectives with Creative Think-ALouds by Hani Morgan and Kathleen York in The Reading Teacher from December 2009/ January 2010 the authors discuss book choice for creative think-alouds.  They write, "Choosing the right books, raising core questions, and juxtaposing diverse points-of-view that represent multiple perspectives are just a few ways to support new learning with creative think-alouds" (Morgan & York, 308) I found a blog which will serve as an invaluable resource as I work on finding and using incredible mentor texts.  The blog is, Teach Mentor Texts and I highly suggest taking some time to explore her archives and find mentor texts for all kinds of think-alouds.