Reading should be thought of as problem solving. It is important for students to practice summarizing in class. According to Schoenbach (1999), "Through repeated cycles of guided individual and group practice, students gained the facility to use each new strategy with increasingly challenging texts" (p. 76). Teaching a think aloud process when reading will help improve students thought process during reading and help them to become more focused, and more fluent.
According to Schoenbach (1999), Teaching the think aloud process looks like the following: (pp 77-78)
Purpose
The think aloud process helps students practice the mental activities, or strategies, engaged in by good readers. It helps them focus on comprehension, and it helps the teacher know when and how students' comprehension goes awry.
Initial Procedure
-Demonstrate the process of using the following types of think-aloud statements while reading a passage you have not seen before to the class.
Types of Think-Alouds
I predict.....
In the next part I think......
I think this is............
Picturing
I picture...
I can see...
Making connections
This is like a .....
This reminds me of....
Identifying a problem
I got confused when....
I'm not sure of...
I didn't expect...
Using fix-ups
I think I'll have to (reread, or take some other action to help comprehension)
Maybe I'll need to (read on, or persevere in some other way)
-After a few demonstrations, ask students to use a checklist to identify your think-alouds.
Think-aloud checklist
Make a tally mark each time you hear one of the following:
Predicting
Picturing
Making Connections
Identifying problems
Using fix-ups
Other
-Go over the checklists with the class
Scaffolded Practice Procedure
-Paired reading. After students have a few opportunities to listen to your modeling of think-alouds and to identify them using the checklist, have students practice think-alouds with a partner. Each student should read a passage, pausing to make think-aloud statements as his or her partner listens. You may want to ask listeners to use the checklist, tallying the think-alouds for the reader.
-Ongoing assessment. give students time, especially first, to share their self-assessments. Have a class discussion on what is hard about trying to think aloud as one reads. Ask students how they went about trying to solve any problems they had. Finally, ask them to reflect on how using think alouds is affecting them as readers.
Applications of Practice Procedure
Choose your applications depending on your purpose.
-Have students keep a reading folder in which they enter the tallies of their thoughts at various points in the school year. During grading periods, students can assess their growth as readers, noting any change in the kinds of thinking they do as they read.
-Guide students in discussing the meaning of texts that they have read in pairs or independently using thinking aloud or thinking silently. This is particularly useful with texts such as primary source documents, scientific reports, essays, and difficult literature, which give readers opportunities to make interments, scientific reports, essays, and difficult literature, which give readers opportunities to make interpretations, draw implications, and link text concepts to other classroom activates.
-Using the think-aloud procedure to demonstrate the different ways proficient readers approach different kinds of texts for different purposes.
There are so many good charts and examples in this book I wish I could put all of them in this blog. I would recommend reading this book! Not only will it help student to read better in your content area it will help improve test scores, I really believe this and will be putting these processes into action this year in my classroom.
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