Text Talk

This article and book reading were very beneficial to some underlying information about using read aloud's in the classroom. When I was reading this article I tried to think back to personal experiences that I have had with people reading book to me. I do remember always looking at the pictures an making assumptions about the plot due to the title or pictures. Now that I am older it is easy to forget that when I'm teaching a child I must really hone in onto the ideas in the text because the children are mostly examining the pictures and getting a false understanding of what the book is about. The authors made some really good clear precise points. If your are using read aloud you must use pictures, open ended questions, discussions, back ground knowledge, and vocabulary in the "most beneficial educational" way. This is not by letting students flip through a book, telling them what words mean, and asking one-word answer questions. Instead, allow children to engage in the text by how inflect the tone and pitch of your voice when your reading, show pictures that go along with the plot during the book reading, help them make connections with their background knowledge through questions and discussions to the ideas in the book, and allow time for students to learn a new word from the book by looking and reading the context in which the word is being used. This process sounds so easy but is yet so complex. A read aloud can be a very rich learning experience for all age groups if it is done with the procedures. Having the student comprehend the text is the ultimate goal. We want them to know the main ideas and how it pertains the content of the story, but we as teachers must prepare time and activities that can assist this style of learning.