Copyright © 2001 by the National Council of Teachers of English. … · 2012-05-06 · of Officer...

The other evening, my six-year-olddaughter and I stretched out on herbed, picked up our well-worn copyof Officer Buckle and Gloria (Rath-mann, 1995), and cuddled for ournightly read-aloud. We’ve beenreading this book for years andadore Rathmann’s humorous illus-trative detail.

“Mommy,” she interrupted while Iread aloud. “I saw you stand on a swivel chair, too, when you didthe fax machine. You shouldn’t do that.”

“Alison,” I gently reminded her, “letme finish this page, and then youcan tell me what the page makesyou think about or remember.” Wecontinued this process of me read-ing, her interrupting, and meblindly reminding her to hold herthoughts because “it’s not polite tointerrupt the person who’s readingto you.” By engaging in this redi-rection (a euphemism, to be sure), Imissed her thoughts on the kidsdoing homework during OfficerBuckle’s demonstration, her touch-ing of the sprinkles on OfficerBuckle’s ice cream cone, her ques-tion about how to make star paper,and her amazement at how themirror worked in the television

Running Out of Time: Rushed Read-Alouds in a Primary Classroom

Jeane F. Copenhaver

What happens when a teacher loses time for reading aloud?

Copenhaver explores the consequences for children and

teachers when a scripted literacy program eliminates time

for thoughtfulness.

Language Arts, Vol. 79 No. 2, November 2001

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SElson

Copyright © 2001 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

scene where Gloria’s antics are fi-nally revealed to Buckle.

Later, I stopped to reflect on my be-havior. Why did I do this? This wasa simple one-on-one read-aloudwith my own child. I could havestopped at any time to listen to her.We had no other voices in ourmidst. I know how to foster “grandconversations” (Peterson & Eeds,1990) about literature and am fa-miliar with reader response. In ret-rospect, I think I was reacting to theyear I spent documenting a group ofprimary grade students’ responses toread-alouds. My experiences hadprompted me to realize Alison’smethod of calling out her thoughtswould be inconsistent with someteachers’ expectations for discourseduring read-aloud time.

During classroom discourse rootedin an initiate-response-evaluation (I-R-E) sequence (Cazden, 1988), stu-dents engaging in read-aloud mustwait for the teacher’s permission tospeak before participating in a dia-logue. For instance, in many class-rooms, children are expected to raisetheir hands and be called uponbefore speaking. Although McGee(1995) and Wells (1995) suggest par-ticipant structure alternatives thatmore closely mirror authentic con-versational patterns, many teacherswork within contexts that are un-supportive of their efforts to taketime for real literature conversations.School days are increasingly seg-mented and filled with prescribedreading programs that fill time thatwould normally be set aside for lit-erature (Copenhaver, 1998; Short,1999). My daughter, at six, was thesame age as Precious, a child whoseclassroom I will describe in this arti-cle. Precious also loved books—lovedto touch them and move to therhythms of the words and call outher thoughts. Her ways of showingengagement, however, often con-flicted with her teacher’s increasing

need for tight control over class-room talk as time became shorterand shorter. I did not want Alison toendure the same consequences asPrecious did and was unconsciouslysocializing my daughter into theschool read-aloud culture.

Unfortunately, my dilemma leavesme with many more questions thananswers. How can we change prac-tice so schools fit the range of dis-course styles children like Preciousand Alison bring to school? Whatcan teachers do about the con-straints that keep them from engag-ing children in conversations ratherthan in interrogations? What are thecosts of silencing or marginalizingthe responses of young childrenduring rushed read-alouds?

In this article, I will explore someimplicit and explicit expectations ofchildren’s talk during read-aloudtime by sharing a study of responseconducted in a multiethnic, primarygrade classroom. The mismatch be-tween the official (and unofficial)discourse expectations in the class-room and the responses of somestudents struck me as a source ofconflict between children. I also sawit as a source of distress for theteacher, who tried to help all chil-dren learn the codes for classroomdiscourse, participate in conversa-tions, and feel validated. Despite herbest efforts, however, the voices ofmany children went unheard andunvalidated instead.

THE RESEARCH CONTEXT

I spent the 1997–1998 school yearin an elementary school situated in amedium-sized, southern town. A fa-miliar face to many of the students, Ihad been in the school for two yearsworking on other classroom-basedresearch. I selected a teacher I knewhad considerable experience foster-ing rich literature discussions andvaluing children’s voices. The

teacher, whom I will call Kathy, al-lowed me access to her classroomthree half days per week for most ofthe school year. I generally “hungaround” with the children duringwriting time, share time, recess, andlunch, and sat as an observer duringclassroom read-alouds. During mytime in Kathy’s classroom, I for-mally observed, audiorecorded, and transcribed 44 whole-class read-alouds.

The school community prided itselfon the multiethnic makeup of thestudent body, and Kathy’s class,representative of the school’s demo-graphics, enrolled eight AfricanAmerican children, twelve whitechildren, and three other childrenwhose parents chose not to grantparticipation consent. In an effortto establish and maintain my re-search credibility, I spent a lot oftime engaging in informal interac-tions with the children and talkingto families as I visited their homesand observed their family interac-tions and literacy practices. Ichecked my impressions of individ-ual students with their families inorder to prevent biased portraits oftheir children and to more fully un-derstand the meaning of the chil-dren’s words and actions. Parentsand children also collaborated onthe children’s pseudonyms for theresearch reports. I began formallydocumenting and audiorecordingmy observations during classroomread-alouds only after I had checkedto see that preliminary field noteswere consistent with each family’sand the teacher’s impressions. Thedata shared in this article—the studyof validated and invalidated talk inan environment of professional constraint—represent but one slice ofthe original study. The findings fromthis portion of the study demon-strate the effects of a rushed read-aloud environment on the responsesof children in one classroom.

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THE CLASSROOM CONTEXT: A RUSHED TEACHER

Kathy’s situation unfortunately willresonate with many process-oriented,elementary teachers. Just as I beganmy larger study of response andethnicity (Copenhaver, 1998),Kathy’s allotted time for read-aloudwas unexpectedly cut short and the time she had always devoted toliterature circles obliterated. Theschool administration informedKathy that she was required to implement a new program for read-ing “skills” instruction. Therefore,mid-morning every day, her students shuffled into cross-room,achievement-based reading groups,and she—assuming responsibility for one of the “lowest” groups ofemerging readers—surrendered toteaching a mandated, scripted, pho-nics program with which she philo-sophically disagreed. This disruptioncaused a notable change in the timeKathy had available for read-aloudsof literature.

Read-alouds and the talk that ac-companies them hold the potentialto engage children in the develop-ment of literary understanding, theconstruction of literacy skills, andparticipation in an interpretive com-munity (Morrow, 2001; Sipe, 2000;Wan, 2000). Read-aloud has longbeen a staple of the primary gradeliteracy curriculum. However,McGee (1995) explains that time totalk about books “is often underval-ued in early elementary classrooms,especially as young children beginreading instruction” (p. 114), and al-though read-alouds were valued byKathy, they were not similarlyvalued as “real” teaching by the ed-ucational community in her school.

Dealing, then, with the creep ofmandated programs that hadchopped forty minutes from hermorning literature block and the in-creasing segmentation of her school

day, Kathy felt forced to make diffi-cult choices about how to use herlimited time. When she did findtime to read aloud, she was oftenforced to cut short her discussions(e.g., “oops, we have to stop there;it’s time for lunch”), retreat into araise-your-hand model, or ask stu-dents to “hold your comments andquestions until the end of the story.”The resulting conversations aboutbooks ran very differently than the

read-aloud discussions I had heardduring the prior two years inKathy’s classroom—before the man-dated phonics program moppedaway almost all time for read-aloudsof literature. In earlier years, allchildren had participated vigorouslyin rich conversations about litera-ture, and Kathy had depended lessheavily on the I-R-E sequence tosteer the dialogue. Instead, Kathy’stalk had contained more markers of

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Bloom, Becky. Wolf! (Orchard, 1999).A wolf discovers the pleasures of reading as a result of his encounters witha cow, a duck, and a pig, all avid readers.

Bradby, Marie. More than Anything Else. Illus. C. Soentpiet. (Orchard, 1995).Nine-year-old Booker works with his father and brother in the salt workswhile making his dream of learning to read come true.

Christelow, Eileen. What Do Authors Do? (Houghton, 1997).A chronicle of the process of writing a book from the first idea to publication.

Johnston, Tony. Amber on the Mountain. Illus. R. Duncan. (Puffin, 1998).Amber’s life on the mountain is lonely without friends or even a school. ThenAnna comes to live on the mountain and Amber gains a friend who teachesher to read and write.

Miller, William. Richard Wright and the Library Card. Illus. G. Christie.(Lee & Low, 1999).A picture book vignette from Wright’s autobiography, Black Boy. Wright wasnot allowed to use the public library because he was African American;however, he took a risk, borrowed a white man’s library card and satisfied hispassion for reading.

Mora, Pat. Tomas and the Library Lady. Illus. R. Colon. (Dragonfly, 2000).When his family of migrant workers moves to Iowa, Tomas discovers newstories at the public library to share with his family.

Polacco, Patricia. Thank You, Mr. Falker. (Philomel, 1998).Patricia’s struggles with reading have an impact on her self esteem until herteacher, Mr. Falker, finds a way to help her overcome her difficulties.

Stewart, Sarah. The Library. Illus. D. Small (Sunburst, 1999).Elizabeth Brown loves to read. When her collection of books takes over herhome, she creates a library for the town.

—Marilyn Carpenter

Children’s Books about Reading and Writing


“wondering” discourse, and the chil-dren’s responses had spoken asoften to their peers’ responses asthey had to Kathy. Literature circleshad previously been a critical partof her morning block time but werenow cut out.

I found the consequences forKathy’s read-alouds startling. Kathy,a longtime believer in the value ofliterature in the classroom, hadlined her classroom with smallcrates of books. One of the reasonsshe offered to participate in mylarger study was her commitment tosocial equity and providing a devel-opmentally and culturally appropri-ate learning environment for all herstudents. Her sensitivity to suchissues prompted her to read aloudfrom many books on diverse themesand to design heterogeneous work-groups within the classroom. Shevisited the homes of students whoseparents were not able to come to theschool and she remained in commu-nication with the families through-out the year. The parents I visitedknew her well and all spoke glow-ingly of her. I have observed fewother teachers making comparableefforts to meet the unique needs oftheir students. I did, and still do,perceive her as a wonderful teacher.

On the other hand, I also see Kathyas very disempowered—living withprofessional constraints similar tothose of teachers I encounter in mywork every day. She lost voice indecisions about when her studentswould leave for art and musicclasses, when her “skills” instructionwould be scheduled, and whenschool-required lectures on “appro-priate behavior” would be delivered.As I will illustrate, she had littlechoice but to accommodate theschool’s schedule and squeeze in herread-alouds wherever possible. Sheexplained to me, “Our time is sosegmented. You’re juggling yourtime, and you want response, but

you have five minutes. And I’mtalking about [finding time for] onestory per day.”

She realized the effects of herschedule on her ability to elicit crit-ical, aesthetic responses from herstudents, but I do not think she to-tally realized—until the conclusionof this study—how powerfully herstudents were affected. While allstudents were negatively affected bythe limited opportunities to respondand the small range of ways inwhich to deliver their responses,some children—those who did noteasily fit the I-R-E sequence—wereaffected in even more pronouncedways. These children were margin-alized from the read-aloud groupand, eventually, the class. If thisoutcome can occur in the classroomof a response-sensitive teacher,what is happening in other class-rooms around the country whereteachers cope with mandatedscripted programs that eliminatetime for engaging children in realconversations about literature?

TIME FOR RESPONSE:VALIDATING AND INVALIDATING

When we are in a hurry, we tend torush those in our environment. Justthis morning as it was time to walkout the door for school, Alison still

had not brushed her teeth or pre-pared her daily snack. She tried toexplain—but I stopped her, “No,don’t tell me now; just get ready,and you can tell me in the car.” Weswirled around the house, grabbingfrantically at what we needed,brushing little teeth, and scramblingtoward the door, books and otherthings tucked under my arm. While

it is possible to function like thisfrom time to time without harmingour relationship, I doubt it wouldtake long for harm to occur.

In Kathy’s class, however, read-alouds were rushed almost everytime and were often cut short.Under the pressure of the clock,Kathy advised children to “hold”their comments until the end of thestories. In twenty percent of all theread-aloud periods I observed, thepromised comment time never ar-rived because the read-aloud endedjust as children had to transition toanother activity or (more often) be-cause the read-aloud was inter-rupted in mid-stream.

To ensure that she would be able tofinish a book on time, Kathy oftenreverted to using comprehension-style questions to elicit brief com-ments from the students. Althoughshe wanted to hear children’svoices, her lack of time dictated thatshe maintain tight control over chil-dren’s speaking turns. Therefore, herquestions, rather than being open-ended, often required students toprovide answers based on theircomprehension of the materialbeing read and/or their comprehen-sion of the story structure beingtaught at that time. For instance,after reading a chapter from LittleHouse in the Big Woods (Wilder,

1960), Kathy questioned studentsabout how Pa’s fiddle was used.During this read-aloud, she gave the“floor” to children to speak bymaking eye contact with them andgiving a brief nod of the head.

Kathy: What did it [i.e., the fiddle] dofor his family?

Melinda: It played music.

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Under the pressure of the clock, Kathy advised children to “hold” their comments

until the end of the stories.


Kathy: No, but—that’s right but—

Sam: It played songs.

Kathy: That’s right. Pa’s fiddle wasspecial because it playedsongs—[pause]

Sam: For the children to calm downand go to bed.

Kathy: For the children to calm downand go to bed. And he playedsongs for the grown ups to dowhat?

Latresa: Dance.

Kathy even explicitly situated herread-aloud practices and expecta-tions within the context of herrushed situation. On one occasion,Kathy found some time for a read-aloud just before lunch. After re-viewing the events of the story,Kathy remarked, “Let’s see whathappens as she [the protagonist inthe story] goes on. I think we havetime if we are good listeners andfollow directions, to hear the end ofthe story and wash our hands andbe ready for lunch.” I do not recallhearing similar comments duringmy prior years’ observations.

As I analyzed data from the read-aloud sessions, I found myselfpaying attention to the kinds of re-sponses that Kathy either did notrecognize or somehow recognizednegatively. Ultimately, I began sort-ing those responses that receivedteacher validation from those re-sponses that were invalidated. In theprocess, I struggled with what to call what I considered “invalidatedresponses.” The term “invalidate”evokes a negative connotation, andyet my impressions of Kathy wereotherwise so positive. However, I observed clear relationships betweenwhat she did during read-aloud withthe context surrounding the read-aloud (e.g., the need to finish a storyin ten minutes before transitioning).Once I separated my feelings about

Kathy from my need to assume thechild’s perspective, I found that theterm did fit. Validating behaviors in-cluded repeating the child’s com-ment in an affirmative tone, makingaffirmative remarks (e.g., “verygood,” or “thank you”), or writingthe child’s response on chart paper.Validations reinforced the commentand let the community of readersknow that it was valued. Jewell andPratt (1999) identify validating com-ments as one way of fostering richliterature conversations.

In the following interaction, Kathyis reading Kinda Blue (Grifalconi,1993).

Kathy: [Reading from the text.] “ ‘Justcornstalks rustling in thebreeze.’ Uncle laughed. ‘Catdon’t got your tongue nomore.’” [Giggles. Kathy addresses children.] What has changed?

[I see Mark and Pat with theirhands up, but I hear othervoices calling out.]

Kathy: Pat?

Pat: Um, the girl’s not feeling blue anymore.

Kathy: She’s not feeling so blue anymore.

Bradley: [Calling out] And the—

Kathy: [Interrupts Bradley and contin-ues reading from book.] “Thenhe pointed proudly back to hiscorn children . . .”

While I considered Pat’s remark tobe “validated” since Kathy repeatedit for the class to hear clearly, otherresponses were invalidated whenthey did not conform to Kathy’s re-vised discourse expectations. Onestrategy for invalidating a child’s response was to read on as if thecomment had not been made, asdemonstrated above when Bradleyspoke without first being recognized.Kathy hoped that the child would re-

consider how he was acquiring aspeaking turn and use one of the understood means for acquiring aturn—for instance, hand-raising. She also used a selective hearingstrategy—ignoring the comment of a child who had “called out” and in-stead calling on a child raising his orher hand. As a prompt to help chil-dren learn the directions for acquir-ing a validated speaking turn, shewould sometimes repeat her expecta-tions. For example, after readingBorreguita and the Coyote (Aardema,1991), Kathy initiated the “questionand comment” time. The followingrepresents part of that dialogue:

Kathy: If you have a comment tomake, don’t just say it outloud. Raise your hand, andwe’ll hear a few [comments],and we’ll start Math. Okay,Kaley has a comment to make. Okay.

Kaley: Are we going to P.E.?

Kathy: Yes we are, after Math. Pat?

Pat: Um, I just wanted to tell youthat I know a song aboutMexico.

Kathy: We’re not going to hear it rightnow, Pat, but I’d like to hear itsometime. Well, if you don’thave anything you want to addto the story right now thenwe’ll go ahead—okay, Shadehas a question. You’re going toask something, right? [Shadenods.] Go ahead.

[I hear many voices, but I canbarely hear Shade’s.]

Kathy: Wait a minute, because someboys and girls maybe are notsitting and being polite. Youcan show Shade that you re-spect her by looking at her andlistening to her.

Shade: I . . . [Her voice trails off.]

Kathy: What is your question, Shade?

Shade: One time, I had walked into a . . .

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Kathy: [Interrupts.] Are you talkingabout something that’s relatedto the story? Are you stickingto the point?

Shade: I know a girl . . .

Kathy: Well, you read the story, andyou know there wasn’t a girl inthe story. [Kathy shifts tomath.] We’re gonna work insome different groups today,and I’m gonna name the groupleaders first and when I do. . . .

As a result of her limited time forread-aloud, Kathy often requiredthat children’s comments be ontopic and that their questions beclearly related to the story. In theexample above, Shade, like some ofher peers, began to articulate astory-like response that was inter-rupted and cut off because Kathyknew it would take time—time shedid not possess—to get to the“point” of Shade’s comment. Kathy,unsure if she would be able to iden-tify a purpose clearly related to theread-aloud, decided this remarkwould be unrelated to the story. Theabove excerpt is a typical examplefrom her classroom read-alouds. AsZarillo and Cox (1992) explain,many elementary teachers adopt anefferent stance toward literature,and I would suggest that the effer-ent stance is the “default” stancewhen time is limited. This stance—and the requisite “on-topic-ness” ofthe children’s contributions—clearlyprohibit wonderings, musings, andanything resembling grand conver-sations. Furthermore, since somechildren’s discourse patterns maygrow out of a more “topic associat-ing” style (Gee, 1989) than theirclassmates’ talk, their remarks areperhaps even more likely to be si-lenced by teachers whose discoursestyles differ from students’ (Cazden,1994) or whose pressure to honorthe clock hurries them.

In the read-aloud culture of theclass, there existed a number of

common understandings about howchildren should behave, and thushow they should respond, duringread-aloud time. I learned these expectations from the children asmuch as I inferred them fromKathy’s behaviors. Most of the children could orally state the ex-pectations considered “commonknowledge” (Edwards & Mercer,1987) about classroom read-aloudculture. The norms of participation,identified by the children, includedsitting during read-aloud, lookingdirectly at the teacher, and waitingfor permission to speak. Lisa memo-rized the requirements and proudly

rattled them off to Kathy. “Look,stay still, and listen.” Sam ex-plained, “You’re the mouth, andwe’re the ears.”

Kathy: How can I tell if you’re listening?

Tyler: You sit like this.

Kathy: You look at me.

Stuart: You look at the person.

Karen: You be quiet.

Tiffany: You look at the teacher.

One child in the class expressed toher intern how she knew when shewas demonstrating the “good lis-tener” behaviors. During recessperiod just after a read-aloud ofCan’t Scare Me! (Milich, 1995), thefollowing occurred:

Intern: You must have liked this storyto listen so well to it.

Tiffany: I was sitting like this. [Shestands up straight, head high,face forward, and smiles.]

Occasionally, a child was asked tomove to the back of the group orhad her name added to a discipli-nary list as a consequence of violat-ing read-aloud time expectations.When making oral contributions,children were to raise their handsand be recognized either verbally orby signal from the teacher beforespeaking. Furthermore, showing en-gagement with a read-aloud bookincluded sitting still and looking at-tentively at the book. Other re-searchers of reader response haveadvised that the opportunity to talkis a critical prerequisite for fosteringhigh levels of response to stories(Cox & Many, 1992; Guice, 1995;Sipe, 1997, 1998). Since childrenvoice many of their responsesduring the readings (Sipe, 1997,1998) or experience progressivelydeeper responses as they continue totalk (Cox & Many, 1992), childrenshould be provided with opportuni-ties for validated talk. If they cannotacquire permission to talk, Guice(1995) found that students willcreate opportunities to talk—even ifthey must do so covertly.

The excerpts in the following sec-tions fail to show the gentle natureof Kathy’s talk with children. She never asked questions with sarcasm—just genuine concern,often with the purpose of promotingthe child’s self-reflection.

Since speaking turns were at a pre-mium, children desperately tried toacquire them. After a long analysisof how Kathy responded to their ef-forts, I noticed that, although nochild was always validated or inval-idated, one particular group of chil-dren received invalidations far moreoften than their peers (Copenhaver,1998). A group of five childrenwhom I call the “Marginalized

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Kathy often requiredthat children’s

comments be on topicand that their

questions be clearlyrelated to the story.


Group” often demonstrated engage-ment with stories by calling outtheir responses or moving in re-sponse to the books. Their behaviorsseemed consistent with their dis-course styles at other times of theday, and I perceived their responsesas delightful examples of literacyengagement. The responses of La-tresa, Billy, Shade, Precious, andDavid show how their enthusiasmfor stories fit into the participantstructures of rushed read-aloud.

WHO GETS VALIDATED? WHATCOUNTS AS RESPONSE?What complicates my study of thefit between response and teacherexpectations is the fact that mostresponses in my transcripts portrayanswers to efferent questions posedby Kathy. Therefore, the followingexcerpts from classroom talk exem-plify this combination of the I-R-Esequence with a highly efferentstance and show students in viola-tion of the structure and/or thestance. The children of the Margin-alized Group frequently called outtheir responses to stories—usuallybefore acquiring a validated speak-ing turn. This discourse pattern mir-rored the overlapping talk they usedin the lunch line, at recess, and inconversations I observed in theirhomes. A second, invalidated modeof response was physical movement.Precious and Billy gave dramatic ordancing responses to stories thatwere read out loud, and Marginal-ized Group members, particularlyPrecious, often moved forward toreach and touch the book beingread. Precious also touched and heldother things she saw and liked atschool (e.g., my computer, herfriends’ toys, scissors) and at home(e.g., her mother’s jewel box), and,when intrigued by books, she en-gaged in similar touching and hold-ing behaviors. The following

examples portray the intersectionsof Marginalized Group students’ re-sponses with the read-aloud normsof the classroom:

• The teacher is reading in Paddle-to-the-Sea (Holling, 1941/1969). Justbefore identifying the biggest lake,she pauses and asks, “What’s thebiggest lake?” Latresa yells, “LakeErie!” The teacher replies, “No, raiseyour hand.” [It’s hard for Latresa totell if her response mode is wrong orif the content is wrong—in this case,it’s both.]

• During another reading, David callsout, “I can’t see. I want to see the kitten—on the other page!” Afew minutes later, he calls out, “Ican’t hear!”

• Kathy asks the children, “Who do youthink’s going to be in this story?” asshe holds up Kinda Blue (Grifalconi,1993). She calls on Tiffany, who re-sponds, “The boy.” “Who else?”probes Kathy, “Latresa?” Latresaquickly explains, “Her mom and hersister.” Kathy doesn’t speak back di-rectly to Latresa but instead asksKaren, “Do you see them in this pic-ture, Karen?” Karen responds, “No.”Kathy continues by asking Lisa whatshe sees. “A farm,” Lisa answers.

• The teacher holds up Red Leaf,Yellow Leaf (Ehlert, 1991). Pat hasher hand up and when prompted bythe teacher to do so, reads aloud thetitle. “Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.” Davidsits up close to the teacher. He leansup into her lap. “Sit down, David.” Atthe same time, Precious gets up andwalks around the message board tothe other side of the teacher. As theteacher reads, Precious reaches upand points to the illustrations. Later,during a pause in the discussion, Pre-cious points to the page again.“What’s this?” she asks—twice. Theteacher responds, “Precious you’restill shouting out,” and reads on inthe book. Again, Precious is reaching

out and pointing. Exasperated, sheasks, “What do that thing do?” Theteacher looks at her. “Precious.” I rec-ognize this as the look my motheronce gave me when she had“reached the end of her rope.” Pre-cious is silenced. A few momentslater, she raises her hand. “Precious,”the teacher says, “did you have aquestion or a comment since yourhand was up?” Precious says nothing.

When I first noticed Precious, David,Latresa, Shade, and Billy receivinginvalidation responses from theteacher more often than their class-mates, I returned to my data to lookfor discrepant evidence. Surely thismust be a mistake, I thought. Unfor-tunately, I noticed that, although allstudents occasionally received inval-idating responses from Kathy, theMarginalized Group received nega-tive responses with far more regular-ity and experienced the most visiblenegative consequences. David, infact, was moved to my table (i.e.,punished) in the back of the class-room during read-alouds so fre-quently that I eventually learned toanticipate the presence of the tap-tap-tapping of his markers on thetable beside my tape recorder. Shade,Precious, and Billy also frequentlyfound themselves in “time-out” forcalling out or moving during read-aloud. Although students who conformed to the expectations ofread-aloud may have experiencednegative consequences (e.g., holdinga comment so long that it was even-tually lost and not voiced), the con-sequences of the Marginalized Groupwere visible to everyone. Therefore,these children carried the “trouble-maker” label in the informal socialworld of the classroom—negotiatedon the playground, at the lunchtable, and during in-class free choice experiences.

One day, I noticed that when Kathyread the story, “Catskinella” (Hamil-

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ton, 1995) without requiring chil-dren to raise their hands for accessto speaking turns, the MarginalizedGroup’s contributions were frequentand mostly validated. I particularlynoticed Precious’s active participa-tion. Although still controlling theconversation by using questions,Kathy permitted a wider range ofcalled-out, spontaneous responses.

In order to understand the influenceof time and the I-R-E sequence onthe ways the Marginalized Groupchildren responded, I then askedKathy to read aloud Zora Hurstonand the Chinaberry Tree (Miller,1994) and The Story of Ruby Bridges(Coles, 1995), without asking com-prehension questions. I suggestedthat she pause at the end of thepage and allow children to respondorally (using self-nomination forspeaking turns) during the pauses.The following excerpt reflects a por-tion of the read-aloud discourse:

Kathy: [Reading from Zora Hurstonand the Chinaberry Tree] “Herfather told her to wear a dress,

to leave tree-climbing toboys. . . . He told her to readthe Bible every day. . . . Hewarned her about girls whodidn’t obey their fathers.”

Billy: [Interrupting] He’s mean!

Kathy: You think that’s . . .

Billy: [Interrupts] The Bible, it’sabout she can go fishin’ and tothe city.

Kathy: You think in the Bible, itwould say that she could do allthose things?

Latresa: He got a mean face. [Referringto the illustration of Zora’sfather.]

Later, Billy’s responses to the Biblicalcontent of the book became strongerand more frequent—he stood up andused a preacher voice—and slowlyKathy began reading on during a fewof his responses.

Billy: Jesus can come before God,’cause you can’t go OVER toget to God, and you can’t goUNDER to get to God. You got

to go straight through Jesus toget to God.

Kathy: Well, that’s what a lot ofpeople believe. I wonder if anyof you have wanted to dosomething that just men do. Isthere anything?

Hands went up—three girls andBilly. She called on the girls. Isensed she was uncomfortable withsome of Billy’s lengthier responsesand was getting back her controlwith an explicit question. The chil-dren offered their individual contri-butions (e.g., “drive a car,” “look atthe stuff in my dad’s safe,” etc.):

Billy: [Interrupting.] Her fatherwrong; she right.

Kathy: We’ll see, Billy. [Calls on nextstudent with raised hand.]

The results astonished us. Thenumber of overall validated turnsfor all students increased dramati-cally as Kathy worried less abouther time, resulting in almost twiceas many conversational turns forchildren as in earlier read-alouds. In

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• Read aloud to your students every day.

• Emphasize the enjoyment of the read-aloud time.

• Plan a regular reading time when the children areready to be engaged.

• Select the material to read carefully, keeping in mind the interests and developmental levels of your students.

• Vary the kinds of materials to read, include a widevariety of genres and topics. Also, share selectionsfrom newspapers and magazines.

• Keep poetry anthologies and riddle and joke bookshandy to bring out when there are extra minutes toread aloud.

• Read with expression and animation.

• Prepare the students by introducing the story, invitingpredictions, and offering any needed explanations.

• Remember discussion about the reading is an impor-tant part of the read-aloud experience. Open-endedquestions will launch a discussion. For instance:What will you remember about the reading? Whatconnections did you make with the reading? Whatdid you like or not like about the reading? How wasthe story different or the same as the predictions youmade before we read?

• Consult The Read-Aloud Handbook (2001) by Jim Tre-lease and Read to Me (2000) by Bernice Cullinan formore ideas about reading aloud.

—Marilyn Carpenter

Tips on Making the Read-Aloud Experience Effective


addition, the percentage of vali-dated speaking turns for the fiveMarginalized Group members rosedramatically from an average of 25percent of the speaking turns (usu-ally invalidated) during earlier readalouds to 39 percent of the chil-dren’s speaking turns during theread-aloud of Zora Hurston and theChinaberry Tree (Miller, 1994). Thispercentage only modestly indicatesthe responsiveness of the Marginal-ized Group members, since theirconversational turns tended to beconsiderably longer than their peers’turns, and—thankfully—their turnsalso largely became validated turns.Kathy permitted each child to speak,and although she did temporarilydelay or read through a few ofBilly’s remarks during the readingof the book and asked the one directquestion reflected above, she gavethe students considerable controlover the dialogue. In fact, the chil-dren’s discussion topics included funeral rituals in their families,whether or not boys should be al-lowed to take ballet, the nature ofthe underground railroad, the valueof reading and learning, and thechildren’s family stories of how theyhad been born.

While I was not surprised that theconversation changed directionoften, I marveled at how much moreI heard from Precious, David, Billy,Latresa, and Shade, and I felt partic-ularly intrigued that Billy’s church-influenced response could be shared

within the interpretive communityof peers. The rich interchanges be-tween all of the children mirroredthe kinds of literature conversationsI had heard in her classroom beforethe “skills” instruction implemen-

tation. The children’s responsesranged from the personal to thecritical (Lewis, 2000) as childrenconnected with the theme of genderdiscrimination (e.g., “Did you knowthat some men say women aren’t al-lowed to drink beer?”), interpretedthrough personal experiences (e.g.,“How did she climb that tree?”), andexplored the metaphorical languageof the story (e.g., “The wind talkslike this”).

After the second read-aloud in thisstyle (The Story of Ruby Bridges,Coles, 1995), Kathy explained to methat the readings had run well intoher math period of the day and thatshe would be unable to conductsubsequent, lengthy read-alouds.They simply took too long. I quicklyrecognized the influence of her timeon her readings. When rushed, shescrambled to grasp control of herconversations and converted thereadings into highly efferent activi-ties. When granted the leisure oftime, however, she could honor thevoices and interests of all her stu-dents and allow them to indulge inaesthetic readings—and better, toallow them to speak to the re-sponses of their classmates. Unfor-tunately, Kathy’s professionalsituation constrained her in waysthat systematically disadvantagedher students, especially the Margin-alized Group members, who so oftenfound themselves in trouble forread-aloud behaviors that thesechildren expected to be sent to

time-out during recess. One after-noon, David asked Kathy why hisname hadn’t been called for time-out. “I’m not in time-out?” he asked,surprised. The cumulative conse-quences of their read-aloud behav-

iors eventually included the rewrit-ing of their identities and the per-ception by classmates that membersof the Marginalized Group weretroublemakers (Copenhaver, 1998).

RESISTING THE HURRY-UP-LET’S-GO CULTUREOF SCHOOLS

Lindfors (1999), in her recent bookabout children’s inquiry, clarifiesthe role of language in children’slearning. Although literature discus-sions clearly have the potential tobe places for “acts of inquiry,” I sawtoo few validated examples of chil-dren’s meaning-making duringKathy’s rushed read-alouds thatyear. A ceiling was put on the de-velopment of literary understandingfor all the students in Kathy’s class.Rosenblatt (1938/1995a) explainsthat free, uninhibited response isnecessary but not sufficient to de-velop critical readers, and both sheand May (1995) reiterate the needfor readers to move beyond earlyresponses. However, in Kathy’sclass, children rarely exhibited free,validated responses and could notbe encouraged to reevaluate theirresponses, rethink their positions,question, or dialogue with one an-other because the rigidity of theparticipant structure largely pre-vented it. In an environment wherespeaking opportunities are heldtightly as the teacher watches theclock, it’s unlikely that the teacherwill pursue the teachable moment,the wondering moment, the reflec-tive moment. Lindfors (1999) iden-tifies “efficiency” and “control”(p. 116) as two reasons teachers usequestions; questions used in thismanner can actually limit children’sinquiries and learning.

Indeed, the year I spent in Kathy’sclass was a year of wondering andtalk in many other parts of theschool day—subjects for which no

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When rushed, she scrambled to grasp control of her conversations and converted the readings

into highly efferent activities.


mandated program had been re-quired. Children wondered abouttheir writing, explored scientificconcepts and practical applications,and experimented with mathemati-cal processes (Copenhaver, 1998).Therefore, the limitations placedduring read-aloud struck me as notonly painful but also as encourag-ing potentially negative attitudestoward reading, fostering a sense oflost voice for the children who didnot navigate the new participantstructure well, and generally estab-lishing an environment that rancounter to the rest of Kathy’s schoolday. Rosenblatt (1995b) encourages“humanistic methods” that help “theteaching of reading to contribute tothe development of responsible citi-zens” (p. 353). I don’t think we canbegin this process too early, and ifread-aloud is an event where thevoices of students are routinely not heard because of the hurry-up-let’s-go circumstances of schools,then we—as people who care aboutchildren—have an ethical and pro-fessional obligation to speak out.

Fortunately for my own child, I amslowing down in my life—encourag-ing Alison to take time to thinkdeeply—and I’m stopping to listen tohow she uses her language towonder about and talk back to andmake fun of books. I discover muchabout her literacy and her curiosi-ties as she voices her responses. Ihear her stepping into Sam and theTigers (Lester, 1996) when she pre-tends she’s Sam, reciting “Ain’t Ifine!” with me as we read. I noticeher attention to detail as she grabsthe book and excitedly points to the“faces” she’s discovered in JerryPinkney’s tree illustrations. I evenlearn that she misses the palm treesof the South and wants an umbrellalike Sam’s (but not green!) for hervery own. Some of her commentscan’t wait and would never beelicited by comprehension-based

questions. By slowing down, I re-store my sense that I support her lit-eracy and our relationship. I’mcautiously optimistic that she willbe able to negotiate the participantstructures of “school talk,” if shemust, but I do wonder how she willbe affected by a steady diet ofrushed read-alouds.

Is a rushed read-aloud—when re-sponses are only minimally voiced(and even then, only by a few students)—better than no read-aloud? What happens to childrenlike the Marginalized Group mem-bers, and could my Alison experi-ence the same consequences if shefails to “hold” her comments untilthe end of the book or if she feelscompelled to reach out and touchthe illustrations? How might Alison’sliteracy be influenced if she be-comes one of the “conformers”—sharing only responses that seem

“relevant” or brief or closed-ended?All students seem to lose in arushed setting, and although thenegative consequences are morevisible for some, we should be concerned about the effects on allchildren. I harbor a personal inter-est in the Marginalized Group stu-dents, who were disproportionatelyAfrican American, and wonder why the consequences of rushedread-alouds were even more pro-nounced for them.

I worry for teachers like Kathy. Imeet teachers like her each week, ingrowing numbers, who want to

resist the domination of their schooldays, who know that “covering” the curriculum isn’t the answer tohelping children learn but who arerapidly cutting from their plans the“most vibrant, integrated, active,effective kind[s] of instruction”(Kohn, 1999, p. 91). The context forschools today makes it a challengefor teachers to transform practice,and overcoming obstacles such as segmentation of the school dayor the implementation of time-swallowing, scripted programs willrequire true persistence. Kathy’s remarks at the conclusion of thestudy stay with me. “Our schedulegets worse and worse every year.. . . Wouldn’t it be nice to havemore time?” she asked. She re-flected on Billy and the associationshe made with books read duringearlier school years. She paused andsighed. “We need to fight harder forliterature time,” she concluded. Iagree. The costs of not fighting toslow down, read, and really talk are simply too high.

Author’s Note

The research reported in this article waspartially supported by The Bilingual Edu-cation Fellowship Program, sponsoredby the U.S. Department of Education,Office of Bilingual Education and Minor-ity Affairs (Grant No. T195T3004–95).

Children’s Books Cited

Aardema, V. (1991). Borreguita and thecoyote. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Coles, R. (1995). The story of Ruby Bridges.New York: Scholastic.

Ehlert, L. (1991). Red leaf, yellow leaf. SanDiego, CA: Harcourt Brace.

Grifalconi, A. (1993). Kinda blue. Boston:Little, Brown, & Co.

Hamilton, V. (1995). Herstories: AfricanAmerican folktales, fairy tales, and truetales. New York: Blue Sky Press.

Holling, H. C. (1969). Paddle-to-the-sea.New York: Houghton Mifflin. (Originalwork published 1941.)

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The limitations placedduring read-aloud

struck me as not onlypainful but also as

encouraging potentiallynegative attitudestoward reading.


Lester, J. (1996). Sam and the tigers. NewYork: Dial.

Milich, M. (1995). Can’t scare me! New York:Doubleday.

Miller, W. (1994). Zora Hurston and the chin-aberry tree. New York: Lee & Low.

Rathmann, P. (1995). Officer Buckle andGloria. New York: G. P. Putnam.

Wilder, L. I. (1960). Little house in the bigwoods. New York: Scholastic.

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Jeane F. Copenhaver was assistant professor of teaching and learning at The Ohio State University at Mansfieldand is now at Furman University.

Author Biography


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