More to Know: The Learning Potential of the Interactive Read-Aloud Wasik and Bond (2001) investigated the learning potential of the interactive read-aloud. Their study, which included 121 four-year-old children from low-income families (94 percent of whom were African American), engaged the treatment group in interactive book reading and extension activities. The interactive read-aloud included defining vocabulary words, providing opportunities for children to use words from the books, asking open-ended questions, and giving children the chance to talk and be heard. Children enter school able to think and reason about the world in situations that make sense to them. In school, however, they learn to think and reason in “disembedded contexts”—to use symbol systems and deal with representations of the world. The control teachers received all the books that treatment teachers did. These books were read as often in control classrooms as they were in treatment classrooms; however, control teachers did not receive the interactive read-aloud training that treatment teachers did. For the first four weeks of the intervention, an experienced teacher modeled the shared book reading techniques in each treatment classroom and assisted with reading extension activities. For the next 11 weeks, treatment teachers ran the program on their own. At post- test, treatment classes scored significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary than control classes did. Treatment classes also scored significantly higher on their knowledge of target vocabulary words. Classroom observations found that teachers in the treatment group were significantly more likely than control teachers to use the target words during related activities. The Power of Talk Just at the name suggests, the read-aloud is truly interactive. As teachers read aloud to their students, they invite them to participate, make comments, extend the ideas of their peers, evaluate the author’s point of view, and ask and respond to questions. In ways that are akin to an orchestra conductor, teachers orchestrate the conversation, which may include asking their students to “turn and talk” with a neighbor about their thinking (Harvey and Ward, 2017; Hoyt, 2007). As students follow their teacher’s modeling and participate in safe, scaffolded book conversations, students quickly learn how to comment, critique, and claim their own thoughts beyond the usual “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” In this way, students build a more intricate network of meaning than they could have accomplished on their own (Scharer et al., 2018; Laminack, 2016; Laminack and Wadsworth, 2006; Whitehurst et al., 1992; Purcell-Gates, McIntyre, and Freppon, 1995).
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INTERACTIVE READ-ALOUDS IN THE CLASSROOM
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