Are you familiar with "think alouds"?

Hello colleagues, Thinking aloud involves teachers modeling their own thought processes to unpack the meaning of a complext text for students. The goal is that students then begin to refine their own thinking strategies when they read complex academic material independently.

In this blog post "Think Alouds Work in Every Subject" by Molly Ness, you can read a great example of how a science teacher thinks aloud while reading a paragraph about the process involved when water molecules change from liquid, to ice, to gas. Ness explains that think alouds are effective for every subject and for learners at any age or level.

Ness offers these 4 tips for teachers who want to "think aloud": 

  1. Align your text with the comprehension strategy that you will model.
  2. Plan in advance.
  3. Provide a visual cue to indicate when you are thinking aloud. (i.e., It's important to signal to students when you are reading and when you are thinking aloud.)
  4. Use I-language to jumpstart your think alouds.

Check out the brief article to get all the details!

If you have experience with thinking aloud, please let us know how it has been working for you!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Teaching and Learning CoP