During an interactive read-aloud, students learn how to: • Focus on the text. • Use suitable words when talking about a text. • Listen actively and respect others’ ideas. • Build on others’ comments. • Back up their opinions with evidence from the text.
Through active participation, students learn that they are expected to respond to one another’s comments; indeed, the expectation is clear: everyone participates.
The Research behind the Interactive Read-Aloud Known as dialogic or interactive, read-alouds result in student gains in vocabulary (Bennett- Armistead, 2007), comprehension strategies and story schema (Van den Broek, 2001), and concept development (Wasik and Bond, 2001; Scharer et al., 2018). Close reading, textual analysis, and deep, intentional conversation about the text (Dickinson and Smith, 1994; Scharer et al., 2018; Lehman and Roberts, 2013) draw students into the text. Fountas and Pinnell invite students to think deeply about text using a three-part framework: thinking within the text, beyond the text, and about the text.
The Interactive Read-Aloud: Vital Support for Middle School Students
While the interactive read-aloud is widely regarded as an ideal instructional strategy for younger children, it offers vital, indispensable support for readers of all ages—including secondary students. Maureen McLaughlin, past president of the International Reading Association (2013-14), writes: As teachers, we can read aloud to students beginning in the early grades and continuing right through high school and on to the university level. Interactive read- alouds and related discussions engage students, increase understanding, and stimulate higher-order thinking. Literacy educators Frank Serafini and Cyndi Giorgis, authors of Reading Aloud and Beyond: Fostering the Intellectual Life of Older Readers (2003), also champion the read- aloud for middle schoolers. They note that the read-aloud supports both reading and writing development and fosters a love of reading. They write, “Reading aloud is just as important for older readers as it is for younger ones and should occur every day, into the intermediate-grade classrooms and beyond.” Middle school teacher Jamie Marsh, writing with co-author Linda Ellis (2007), agrees:
134
CHAPTER 5: TEACH
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs