In our last post, we discussed how to effectively use a Think Aloud to model what we are thinking while we read. After a few think aloud lessons, your students will not be contained! They are bursting with "brain-talk" and cannot wait to share with you and their peers. Once you have modeled brain-talk with one or two texts, it's time to observe and affirm what your students' brains are saying.
Choose another text for an interactive read aloud experience. Here's a few helpful tips to keep in mind as you engage students in the reading.
Tip #1: Affirm Visceral Reactions On The Spot
Keep language learners involved by being an eagle-eyed observer, or enlist your co-teacher to watch facial expressions like a hawk. Look for changes in expression on your students' faces and pause your reading to address them. Call attention to their surprised or angry or sad faces and ask them why they made them. If the students do not have the language (or the courage) to share their thinking with words, draw an emoji on a Post-it to reflect and affirm their thinking. Label the emotion or reaction for them to build their vocabulary knowledge.
While newcomers may respond with emojis, more advanced students will likely provide more sophisticated responses. Responses may include adjectives, phrases, onomatopoeia, or questions. Simply record these reactions on the post it.
While we do provide the emotion Post-it menu to jump-start their awareness of metacognitive processes, students are given free reign to use them as they wish. Over time, they begin to generate their own images and comments, helping to build a classroom language for thinking and talking about text.
Tip #2: Allow Students to Interrupt The Read Aloud
Pause your reading when hands go up (or after you finish the sentence, paragraph or page you were just reading). Call on two to three volunteers to share their thinking, or reveal their brain-talk, on the spot.
What happens if every student wants to share? An enthusiastic audience is definitely a good problem to have. However, too much talking can take a lesson off course, eat up valuable time, and diminish opportunities for further practice. In order to capitalize on student engagement and create a culture of accountability in a non-threatening way, invite students to turn and talk with a partner. After the turn and talk, summarize a few responses you heard and add Post-its to the page. You might say, "I heard some students say they felt really worried when Jabari was standing on the edge of the diving board." Then, draw a "worried" emoji and affix it to the page.
Strike a balance between selecting volunteers and assigning turn and talk discussions to keep the lesson flowing.
If, after a few pages, you get no response from your student audience, feel free to model your own "brain-talk" again. Sometimes students need a jump-start to think about the text. Start them off with something simple, like placing smiley-faced emojis on places in the text that make you giggle, or question marks on passages that were confusing or contained an unfamiliar word. After a minute or two, your students will respond. Do not worry if their thinking is shallow or deep. At this phase, it is more important to elicit their reactions to text and to help them notice that their brains have something to say.
Other times, students are wary to participate because they are afraid of getting a response "wrong" or finding the right words to express their thinking. If you think fear is getting in the way, model brain-talk that demonstrates open-ended thinking or a change of mind. For example, say, "I wonder if Camilla Capybara will bully Wodney," or "At first, I thought Camilla Capybara was going to only bully Wodney Wat and send him deeper into his coat. But then, I noticed she bullied everybody." Write "BULLY!" on a Post-it and stick it on the page. Be sure to communicate that there are no right or wrong answers.
Tip #3: Use Text as A Language Model
Using the language of texts is an extremely effective way to expand vocabulary and build English proficiency. As we have seen, students can respond to text even with limited proficiency. Responses may be as simple as a facial expression or sound effect. Teachers can affirm and recast these types of responses in a more complex way by using explicit language from the text. These textual references can serve as powerful models for students.
Here are a few examples:
Romeo, a first-grade newcomer, was unable to verbalize his thoughts about The Three Little Pigs in English. However, he clearly understood the wolf's intentions as he lurked behind the bushes.
Romeo: (With hands curled into claws, Romeo leaned in and growled) "Grrrrrrr."
Teacher: Yes! "A wicked wolf was watching from behind a tree."
While reading Where the Wild Things Are:
Romeo: No, no, no!
Teacher: They don't want him to go. They say, "Oh, please don't go." Can you say that?
Romeo: Oh, please don't go!
In both of these examples, the teacher expanded the student's responses by incorporating precise words and phrases from the story. The goal is to provide a language model that can be accessed in various contexts.
Tip #4: Create a Class Menu of Thinking
Pinterest is filled with hundreds of notable Close Reading anchor charts crafted by talented educators. Education websites and other published resources provide sample charts, menus and bookmarks filled with text annotations, or codes, for students. While they display important information, these charts may be overwhelming for language learners to navigate. Many of these menus reference comprehension strategies that are unfamiliar to our students.
One way to scaffold the coding process is to create all the necessary tools WITH the students, avoiding the use of any tool that is created outside of our experiences with them. Involving students in this process improves engagement, comprehension, and buy-in.
Add new images and comments collected from students during read alouds to a dynamic Post-it "menu". These can be translated into bookmarks or other handy reminders. These menus become records of conversations your students have with the author, with you, and with themselves, opening a window into their reading brains.
In our last post, we discussed how to effectively use a Think Aloud to model what we are thinking while we read. After a few think aloud lessons, your students will not be contained! They are bursting with "brain-talk" and cannot wait to share with you and their peers. Once you have modeled brain-talk with one or two texts, it's time to observe and affirm what your students' brains are saying.
Choose another text for an interactive read aloud experience. Here's a few helpful tips to keep in mind as you engage students in the reading.
Keep language learners involved by being an eagle-eyed observer, or enlist your co-teacher to watch facial expressions like a hawk. Look for changes in expression on your students' faces and pause your reading to address them. Call attention to their surprised or angry or sad faces and ask them why they made them. If the students do not have the language (or the courage) to share their thinking with words, draw an emoji on a Post-it to reflect and affirm their thinking. Label the emotion or reaction for them to build their vocabulary knowledge.
While newcomers may respond with emojis, more advanced students will likely provide more sophisticated responses. Responses may include adjectives, phrases, onomatopoeia, or questions. Simply record these reactions on the post it.
While we do provide the emotion Post-it menu to jump-start their awareness of metacognitive processes, students are given free reign to use them as they wish. Over time, they begin to generate their own images and comments, helping to build a classroom language for thinking and talking about text.
Pause your reading when hands go up (or after you finish the sentence, paragraph or page you were just reading). Call on two to three volunteers to share their thinking, or reveal their brain-talk, on the spot.
What happens if every student wants to share? An enthusiastic audience is definitely a good problem to have. However, too much talking can take a lesson off course, eat up valuable time, and diminish opportunities for further practice. In order to capitalize on student engagement and create a culture of accountability in a non-threatening way, invite students to turn and talk with a partner. After the turn and talk, summarize a few responses you heard and add Post-its to the page. You might say, "I heard some students say they felt really worried when Jabari was standing on the edge of the diving board." Then, draw a "worried" emoji and affix it to the page.
Strike a balance between selecting volunteers and assigning turn and talk discussions to keep the lesson flowing.
Other times, students are wary to participate because they are afraid of getting a response "wrong" or finding the right words to express their thinking. If you think fear is getting in the way, model brain-talk that demonstrates open-ended thinking or a change of mind. For example, say, "I wonder if Camilla Capybara will bully Wodney," or "At first, I thought Camilla Capybara was going to only bully Wodney Wat and send him deeper into his coat. But then, I noticed she bullied everybody." Write "BULLY!" on a Post-it and stick it on the page. Be sure to communicate that there are no right or wrong answers.
Using the language of texts is an extremely effective way to expand vocabulary and build English proficiency. As we have seen, students can respond to text even with limited proficiency. Responses may be as simple as a facial expression or sound effect. Teachers can affirm and recast these types of responses in a more complex way by using explicit language from the text. These textual references can serve as powerful models for students.
Here are a few examples:
Romeo: (With hands curled into claws, Romeo leaned in and growled) "Grrrrrrr."
Teacher: Yes! "A wicked wolf was watching from behind a tree."
While reading Where the Wild Things Are:
Romeo: No, no, no!
Teacher: They don't want him to go. They say, "Oh, please don't go." Can you say that?
Romeo: Oh, please don't go!
In both of these examples, the teacher expanded the student's responses by incorporating precise words and phrases from the story. The goal is to provide a language model that can be accessed in various contexts.
Pinterest is filled with hundreds of notable Close Reading anchor charts crafted by talented educators. Education websites and other published resources provide sample charts, menus and bookmarks filled with text annotations, or codes, for students. While they display important information, these charts may be overwhelming for language learners to navigate. Many of these menus reference comprehension strategies that are unfamiliar to our students.
One way to scaffold the coding process is to create all the necessary tools WITH the students, avoiding the use of any tool that is created outside of our experiences with them. Involving students in this process improves engagement, comprehension, and buy-in.
Add new images and comments collected from students during read alouds to a dynamic Post-it "menu". These can be translated into bookmarks or other handy reminders. These menus become records of conversations your students have with the author, with you, and with themselves, opening a window into their reading brains.
Interested in creating the Brain Talk Anchor Chart and Interactive Brain Sticks? Grab them HERE for free!
Once students have an awareness of thinking and are interacting with text, they are ready to explore the comprehension strategies that are at play in their brains. We'll discuss this in Part 5: Naming and Defining Strategies.
Once students have an awareness of thinking and are interacting with text, they are ready to explore the comprehension strategies that are at play in their brains. We'll discuss this in Part 5: Naming and Defining Strategies.
Where can I find this particular, kid friendly image of the happy brain ? I love it !
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to try this with my kids !
We just updated the post with a link to the resource. You'll find the freebie at the bottom. Let me know if it works! :)
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