Think Alouds
What is a Think Aloud?
All Reading Apprenticeship teachers use the Think Aloud routine to model the ways that readers think about their texts. A think aloud is the reading of a short chunk of text coupled with the thinking that runs through your mind as you read the text. The text and the thinking are both verbalized. When teachers show thier mental activity while reading, students are on boarded about what they should also be doing when they read.
What does this look like?
Why Use Think Alouds:
By using Think Alouds to your class, you help the students “see” your thinking processes as you read. As you read the passage, in a Think Aloud you explain how you make sense of text that may be confusing for students (new vocabulary, unusual sentence construction, complex terms and field specific uses, ideas that help develop your understanding of the text). This strengthens the students’ ability to apply new thinking and processing skills to text. Do not worry about modeling too much. Think Alouds should be routine in your classroom.
Across campus, students have told us some new ideas they have gained from observing faculty engage in think aloud modeling:
- I can bring my own knowledge to the text.
- Rereading is not a sign that I am a slow reader, but it means that I am working to make meaning.
- Teachers sometimes do not see what I do not know, so asking for clarification as the teacher models helps me.
- Different strategies are used for different texts. I discovered that there are many ways of reading.
- Talking aloud helps me figure out meaning because I am hearing it and reading it at the same time.
- I see that punctuation is really important in English. If I understand differences between a semi-colon and a colon, this can help my comprehension of sentences.
- Reading is not a simple task.
Readers observe their faculty as expert readers. They monitor their understanding by rereading a sentence, reading ahead to clarify, and/or looking for context clues.
The following chart offers ways to model reading strategies in a Think Aloud.
|
Strategy of Think Aloud |
Word to begin verbalize what is in the text |
|
Predicting |
I predict … In the next part I think … I think this is … |
|
Questioning |
Why did … What did … How did … Where was …Should there … |
|
Visualizing |
I see … I imagine that… I picture … |
|
Personal Response |
I feel … My favorite part … I liked/disliked … |
|
Clarifying |
I got confused when … I’m not sure of … I didn’t expect … |
|
Summarizing |
I think this is mainly about … Most important is |
|
Reflecting |
I think I’ll … next time. I wonder if… Maybe I’ll need to … next time. I realize that… |
|
Making Connections
|
This is like … This reminds me of … This is similar to …
|
How to prepare for a Think Aloud
Here is a pdf file of the Think Aloud Process Download Think Aloud Process