Think aLOUD

Think Alouds are a new idea to me that will definitely become part of my toolbox as a teacher. The think aloud type that I wanted to focus on was a general gradual-release of responsibility. Here the responsibility and expertise of book is gradually exchanged from the teacher to the students.  The book I decided to do for this think aloud is The Mitten adapted and illustrated by Jan Brett. I chose this book because it was available to me in my classroom library and I knew it was a rich piece of literature that has fantastic illustrations.

This week one thing that the teacher was focusing on was sequencing. Sequencing can be oh so boring! So I tried to make the think aloud as interactive as possible.  I started out by introducing the sequencing to my student Kamren (changed name). Kamren was a 2^nd grade on level reader that had finished his work quickly, so I got the opportunity to work with him. I asked Kamren if he had worked on sequencing before and he gave me a confused look. After we went into a little more detail about what exactly sequencing is he was excited to tell me that he has worked on this strategy before. I asked Kamren why we would use sequencing and he said, “It helps when we are trying to tell someone what happened.” After a couple more prompting questions, Kamren said, “Also it is used when I am trying to think about the order that things happened.” I was satisfied with these responses, so I decided start the book and the gradual release process.

I told Kamren that I am going to start reading and I am going to show you what I am thinking as I read the text. So far everything was going as planned.. so far…? I thought everything was off to a smooth start and I began creating a conversation about the text as I read. For example, it the first couple pages, the boy Nikki’s, grandmother makes him mittens. I made a conversation by telling Kamren, “Wow those mitten’s look very warm and fluffy.” He responded by saying, “Yes they do.” We continued to page through the book and I would make connections to something that I was thinking about. It came very naturally for me. Kamren would often agree and nod his head, but I wouldn’t see a lot of conversation back. After reading through more than half the book, I asked Kamren to take over the reading. I was crossing my figures he could start conversing more now that he was reading…. But if didn’t go quite that perfectly. What did I do… flexibility!

One strategy that I intended to use more is the “read aloud/pause/write.” I modeled this at one point at the beginning of the story. I stopped and with Kamren wrote down what I was thinking about two events that were happening in a row. We quickly discussed how I used words such as “next, then, after” to describe the sequence of events. I think next time, I would try harder to scaffold Kamren to do this on his own when he was working more independently. I think I was so nervous that he wasn’t going to start thinking aloud that I forgot about scaffolding him to do this strategy on his own.  

This is one of my teaching believe… we have to role with the punches. I still wanted Kamren to get the meaning out of this lesson. So I started to ask prompting questions that had to do with sequential ordering? I also still intervened and tried to make my thinking visible. We finally started to move into a guided practice portion of the think aloud process. Kamren made comments like, “They have so many animals in the mitten!!” or “Jeez, I thought the mitten would have broken.” One comment that I was happy he made and gave me indication that we was understanding the ideal of sequencing is when he said, “First a mole goes into the mitten, then a rabbit, and now a hedge hog!! How many more can fit?” I loved listening to his remarks because soon I needed very few encouragers. He took more independence as we moved through the book.

Although initially I was very worried that Kamren was not catching onto the gradual release process. I realize I need to patient. I have to keep telling myself… “its okay…don’t freak out… don’t jump in too quickly!” He was a little hesitant possibly because he was not too familiar with the think aloud process. I was thrilled when he finally started to make statements that helped me see what he was thinking. This is what Wilhelm discusses as “talk-throughs.” A “talk through” is when the student responds to what is being discussed in the book. It started as mostly me doing the talk through but turned into Kamren doing more and more of this Sometimes they turned into mini-rants. But that way okay! I wanted to make an open and free environment where he was free to communicate what ever was going through his head!