Think Alouds

Unfortunately, I do not have my own classroom of students to do this with, but I have done similar things in the past. Whenever I am reading a text that I will be teaching, I always record my thoughts, reactions, feelings, questions, etc... in the book. When I am then reading to the class, I will often stop and tell them what I had been thinking at that time and get some of their reactions and see if they can answer my questions. They seem to respond well to that, and it is also a way to show them how to do it themselves and demonstrate how to do dialogue journals, which is an activity I like for harder texts that mimics Think Alouds. I love it when I get students who become comfortable enough to share their own thoughts during the reading because it often leads to further discussions and connections.