INTERACTIVE READ-ALOUDS IN THE CLASSROOM
“If we wish to help children and adolescents become thoughtfully literate, classroom talk around texts is critical.” —Dr. Richard Allington, University of Tennessee
KEY FINDINGS
> > After evaluating 10,000 research studies, the U.S. Department of Education’s Commission on Reading issued a report, Becoming a Nation of Readers (1985). It states: “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.” The study found conclusive evidence supporting reading aloud in the home and in the classroom. Adults need to read aloud to children not just when children can’t yet read on their own, but across all the grade levels (Anderson et al., 1985). > > Just as the name suggests, the read-aloud is truly interactive. As teachers read aloud to children, they stop only briefly and just a few times so as not to lose the momentum of the story. At the same time, teachers invite children to participate, make comments, extend the ideas of the author, and ask and respond to questions. In this way, children build more intricate networks of meaning than they could have accomplished on their own (Scharer et al. 2018). > > Researchers maintain that one of the most valuable aspects of the read-aloud is the experience it gives young children with decontextualized language, requiring them to make sense of ideas that are about something beyond the here and now (Beck and McKeown, 2001). > > The interactive read-aloud builds student vocabulary (Beck and McKeown, 2001), comprehension strategies, story schema (Scharer et al., 2018; Lever, and Sénéchal, 2011), and concept development (Wasik and Bond, 2001; Bennett-Armistead, Duke, and Moses, 2005). > > Simply inviting children to talk during interactive read-alouds doesn’t provide the needed learning boost. It’s the close reading—and deep, intentional conversation about the text—that makes the difference (Scharer et al., 2018; Bennett-Armistead, Duke, and Moses, 2005; Pinnell and Fountas, 2011; Cunningham and Zilbusky, 2014).
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CHAPTER 5: TEACH
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