READ ALOUDP-12Loddon Mallee Region

Session Outline• Literacy Frameworks

• Research

• Teachers’ Reading Behaviours

• In the Content Areas

• Thinking Through the Text

• Home/school Partnerships

LITERACY ELEMENTS

• Read Aloud

• Shared Reading

• Guided Reading

• Independent Reading

SPEAKING & LISTENING

OBSERVATION&

ASSESSMENT

• Write Aloud

• Shared Writing

• Guided Writing

• Independent Writing

4

GRADUAL RELEASE OF RESPONSIBILITY

MODELLINGThe teacher

demonstrates and explains the literacy focus being taught. This is achieved by thinking aloud the

mental processes and modelling the

reading, writing, speaking and

listening

The student participates by

actively attending to the demonstrations

SHARINGThe teacher continues

to demonstrate the literacy focus,

encouraging students to contribute ideas

and information

Students contribute ideas and begin to

practise the use of the literacy focus in

whole class situations

GUIDINGThe teacher provides scaffolds for students

to use the literacy focus. Teacher

provides feedback

Students work with help from the teacher and peers to practise the use of the literacy

focus

APPLYINGThe teacher offers

support and encouragement when

necessary

The student works independently to apply the use of

literacy focus

Role of the teacher

Role of the student

Pearson & Gallagher

DEG

REE

OF

CO

NTR

OL

Activity - Anticipation Guide

An Agreed Understanding of Read AloudBirth 4mths School 8yrs 16yrs

Read Aloud as a reading instruction element

Child associates reading as a pleasurable experience

Development of language, vocabulary, enjoyment, appreciation of books, background knowledge, model effective reading behaviours

As seen in Jim Trelease seminar/ The Read-Aloud Handbook(Penguin Books, 2006)

Child's total words heard by age 4

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

high

medium

low

fam

ily in

com

e

words in millions

Meaningful differences by Hart & Risley

READ ALOUD Description

Reading quality literature and text to students isreferred to as “Read Aloud”. Read Aloud must occur several times daily for a variety of instructional purposes.

A Read Aloud is a planned activity.

It should involve the whole class, small groups and individual students.

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READ ALOUD Classroom Indicators- Instruction

• Student engagement is evident during text reading. For example: wondering, imagining, identifying, laughing, spontaneous comment, non verbal responses

• Teachers demonstrate reading as a valuable and enjoyable activity

• Teachers use a variety of carefully selected texts to expose students to language structures, how texts ‘work’ and how to gain meaning from text

• Teachers demonstrate reading strategies by sharing the reading process with students

• Instructional focus may be problem solving, fact finding, text types, analysing, inferring, author

study. 11

READ ALOUD Classroom Indicators- Resources

• Many quality texts, diverse in style, topic and level of difficulty, well displayed and easily accessible

• Examples of text should come from fiction and factual texts, including multi modal texts

• Well resourced, inviting classroom and central libraries

• Blocks of time scheduled for reading

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Read Aloud as an Instructional Element• Read Aloud is powerful teaching when the skills or

strategies of a proficient reader are modelled intentionally and authentically

• We take what metacognitive readers do implicitly and make it explicit

• We show students how skilled readers construct meaning from text

• The term Read Aloud is used in a way that also embraces Interactive Read Aloud; your students should always have opportunities to interact with the text that is being read to them, by commenting, questioning, giving opinions and sharing ideas.

Research 

Why Read Aloud?• Builds community• Models fluent reading• Models a language that successful readers use• Models metacognition• Fosters critical thinking• Exposes to new vocabulary and language patterns• Helps activate prior and build new knowledge• Models the reading process• Models strategies: eg. predicting, visualising,

connecting,fix-up strategies • Reviews text structure.

Interactive Read Alouds: Is there a common set of implementation

practices?• In 2004 Douglas Fisher and his colleagues from San

Diego State University examined the Read Aloud practices of 25 expert teachers to identify common factors.

• They then observed 120 additional teachers to see if the procedures were used widely

Essential components of an Interactive Read Aloud

• Books chosen are appropriate to students’ interests and matched to their developmental, emotional and social level

• Selections have been previewed and practiced by the teacher• A clear purpose for the read-aloud was established• The teachers model fluent oral reading when they read the text• Teachers are animated and use expression• Teachers stop periodically and thoughtfully question the

students to focus them on specifics of the text• Connections are made to independent reading and writing

How well is Interactive Read – Aloud done in our classrooms?

• Books chosen are appropriate to students’ interests and matched to their developmental, emotional and social level

• Selections have been previewed and practiced by the teacher

• A clear purpose for the Read Aloud was established• The teachers model fluent oral reading when they read the text

• Teachers are animated and use expression

• Teachers stop periodically and thoughtfully question the students to focus them on specifics of the text

• Connections are made to independent reading and writing

How would you rate yourself on a scale 1-10?

What they found out

What does the teacher do to engage and support student

thinking?

Randy reading “Short Cut” by Donald Crews

Read Alouds in Content Areas.Why Read Aloud in Science?

• Modelling reading and thinking strategies that foster critical thinking

• Introduce a lesson, focus on a science concept, the author’s craft or a particular literary feature

• Increase science vocabulary• Lower the abstract nature of science textbook

explanations• Improve comprehension of science text• Model curiosity and question posing, generate

questions for discussion and investigations

VIDEO

Science lesson Year 8 “The Digestive System”

What does the teacher do to engage and support student understanding?

Read Alouds in Content Areas.Why Read Aloud in Maths? • Model thinking and talking mathematically• Model strategies• Increase math vocabulary• Improve comprehension of maths text• Highlight maths concepts• When reading aloud, you can stop from time to time and orally

complete sentences like these:

I wonder why...I was confused by...

So far, I've learned...

I just thought of...

That is interesting because...I think the most important part was...This made me think of...

I reread that part because...

I think ___ will happen next.That didn't make sense.

Some stems to support our thoughts

Thinking aloud

Monitoring comprehension

Making connections

Previewing text

Predicting

Previewing Text• “The title/author/pictures/captions/book design makes

me think of…”• “The title makes me think that this is going to be about

a ________”• “The comments on the back cover lead me to believe

that…”• “The photographs/headings/subheadings make me

think that…”

Predicting• “I’m guessing that _______ will happen next.”• “I bet that …”• “I wonder if…”• “I imagine the author believes…”• “This reminds me of…”• “This could help me with…”• “Since this happened _____, then, I bet the next thing

that is going to happen is…”• “This is like…”

Monitoring Comprehension• “This is not making sense because…”• “This connects to what I already know because…”• “Now I understand ______”• “This makes sense now because…”• “No, I think it means….”• “This part is really saying”• “At first I thought ______, but now I think…”

Making Connections• “This reminds me of…”• “This part is like…”• “This character is like _______ because…”• “This is similar to …”• “This character makes me think of…”• “The setting reminds me of…”• “This is helping me with/to think about…”• “Something like this happened to me.”

Thinking Aloud• “This is powerful because…”• “This is hard because…”• “This is confusing…”• “This is contrary to my understanding of…..”• “I like the part where…”• “This reinforces …..…”• “My favourite part is…”• “I think that…”• “When the author said…. I felt…..”

Parents / Community

• The power of reading to childrenRef Risdon Prison

How does your school link with parents and the community???

Share

Resources and References• The Elementary Science Integration Projects (ESIP) promote connections between

language arts instruction and inquiry-based science in grades K-8. Project activities http://www.esiponline.org/classroom/foundations/reading/readalouds.html

TeacherVision® is dedicated to helping teachers save time. Find 20,000 pages of classroom-ready lesson plans, printables, and resources. This section is on read aloud:

• http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/problem-solving/48546.html• The Screen Actors Guild hosts Storyline Online, chock-full of video read alouds.  

Well-known actors read children's books, and the videos are optimized to play at almost any bandwidth (even dial-up).  - there are many current and diverse new titles here:

http://www.storylineonline.net/• Jim Trelease shares advice on how to read a book you don't want to read in this nine-

minute video for reluctant readers of any age.  This link also includes a summary of the video for dial-up users:

http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/tree-book-video.html • Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell Teaching for Comprehending and fluency • Harvey Stephanie & Goudvis Anne, 2007, Strategies That Work: Teaching comprehension

for understanding

Planning for Read Aloud

• What do you need to ensure that powerful Read Aloud happens in all classrooms?

• Share at tables