What+is+thinking+out+loud?




 * Think-aloud ** is a well-researched and important strategy for reading comprehension. Simply put, it is when readers recognize and talk out loud about the process that is occurring in their head (metacognition), as they read. Students who think metacognitively can monitor their thinking processes, adjust their thinking to achieve clearer comprehension and use that adjustment for any future refinement in making meaning as they read.

The **Think-aloud strategy** is interesting because it needs to be treated as a comprehension strategy in its own right, but also the kinds of thinking aloud being done involves the use of other comprehension strategies. So you can integrate the teaching of Think-aloud with the teaching on each of the other strategies. Think-aloud has been shown to improve students’ comprehension both when students themselves engage in the practice during reading and also when teachers routinely use Think-aloud while reading to students (Duke and Pearson, 2002). Good readers can self monitor their own reading comprehension. ** They decide, when thinking aloud, which strategies they may need to use in order to assist their understanding of the material at hand. They employ a range of strategies such as self-questioning, predicting, retelling, visualizing and summarizing as a means of creating meaning. All of these may be used as part of Think-aloud, which is helpful because your students will realize that comprehension strategies are interrelated. Many developing and struggling readers do not employ self-monitoring strategies and consequently do not construct meaning that assists them comprehend what they are trying to read. It is crucial for you to gain some insight into what a student is or isn’t doing during this process of reading. ** Listening to students as they use Think-aloud is a useful form of assessment. It gives you the ability to determine each student’s comprehension and self monitoring strategies. This helps you to make informed decisions about how you can assist the students develop and improve the process they use in constructing meaning from text. With that knowledge, you can plan a flexible, responsive, and stimulating instructional program to assist your students improve their comprehension by
 * acquiring the ability to self monitor their reading comprehension;
 * thinking about what they don’t comprehend;
 * learning a range of fix up strategies to be used to support and refine any breakdowns in comprehension;
 * learning how to use comprehension strategies whenever they are reading.


 * The strategy of Think-aloud can be used to assist your students to do this across all subject areas, and can be modeled in Social Studies, Science, Mathematics and any time there is an opportunity to say out loud the thinking that is taking place behind an action. Good readers are thinking about their interaction with the text all the time, trying to make sense or comprehend the information in front of them. ||
 * Reference: Di Snowball - Reading Comprehension Strategies Years 5-8 **