Children are never too young or too old for read-alouds. There are so many great benefits to this activity. It’s a useful strategy to make more content accessible to students with different reading levels. It generates class discussions even among different reading comprehension levels within a learning community. Reading aloud allows the teacher to model deep thinking and questioning for their students. This helps students see how teachers sort through information and pinpoint important details. Finally, students’ listening comprehension and vocabulary are generally at a higher level than their reading comprehension and vocabulary. So read-alouds really open a whole new range of rich literature and sources.
Here are some tips to maximize the benefits of read-alouds:
1. Set the Purpose.
Before you read aloud, whether it’s a fiction or non-fiction passage or even a historical source, it is very important to engage the students right away by setting the purpose and meaning of the activity. Relate it to previous learning and share what you would like for the class to get out of the activity. Direct teach any difficult ideas or vocabulary that they will encounter in the reading now. It will help the reading go more smoothly and provides repeated exposure to new content.
2. Preview, Question, and Predict
If it’s a section in the textbook, preview titles, subtitles, captions, pictures, etc. For novels and story books, preview at least the front and back covers and, if it doesn’t spoil any plot twists, any pictures inside the book. Try to get the students to think more actively about what they see by encouraging them and praising them for generating questions and predictions based on what they see.
3. Model Thinking Through Think-Alouds
Model your own thoughts by saying them out loud. For example, in previewing a picture, you might say something like, “The boy in the picture looks angry to me because of the shape of his eyebrows and mouth. I wonder where he is walking to and if he’s going to cause trouble.” Allow students to do the same and think their thoughts aloud to the class. Validate all contributions by giving specific praise or pushing for deeper connections and thinking by proposing purposeful questions. Personally, I love modeling and encouraging questions because I’ve found that this really engages learners in the long term and on a deeper level. Compared to the finality of simple predictions and answers, the mystery and problems presented in questions tend to lead to more meaningful questions, a deeper exploration of the content, and longer engagement in students. So I really try to model aloud lines of questioning that is inspired by any one particular thing that we look at. It is really exciting and amazing when the kids start generating their own questions, especially ones you have not thought of. When students are able to express and share their questions and line of thinking, it really helps the class function as a learning community as they enrich and connect their thoughts to one another.
4. Pause and Process
Pausing during important parts of the reading allows for more think alouds to model thinking and gives students the opportunity to process the information. The extra interaction will also help them retain any new information or generate more questions and predictions. This helps students increase their comprehension.
5. Think, Pair, Share
Though, it’s not something I would do every time we pause, it is important to provide students the time and space to process the content with one another. Select key parts of the reading for students to take some time to think about what they’ve read for a few seconds individually, to summarize and share questions/predictions with a partner, and to share with the whole class. On short passages, the only opportunity might just be at the end, and that’s okay. But this process is important since it facilitates independent thinking as well as social learning.
6. Reflect and Bring it Full Circle
At the end of the reading, it is important to bring it full circle by discussing the purpose you’ve set at the beginning. Tie up an loose ends and clarify any straightforward questions that remain or questions regarding comprehension. Allow the students to summarize what they’ve learned – either through a think, pair, share, a short written piece, comic strip, illustrations, etc. Any extra opportunities to interact and process with the content increases comprehension, engagement, and retention.
Anyway, I hope this helps! Thank you for teaching!