Read Aloud, Think Aloud, Write Aloud Lesson

Read Aloud, Think Aloud, Write Aloud Lesson

Connecting reading, thinking and writing should be a natural process that children are involved in every day. The teacher as a model of these processes provides a scaffold for children. When teachers model reading aloud, they demonstrate or make visible how reading should sound and how we think about, comprehend and analyze text. Through writing aloud, teachers model the thinking processes and mechanics involved in composition, use of proper grammar, spelling strategies, editing and revision, and much more.

As a requirement of this class and practicum, you will conduct a read aloud, think aloud, write aloud lesson with the whole class in a 3-6 classroom.You will need approximately forty-five minutes for this assignment. Plan the lesson in consultation with the classroom teacher.

• The first step is to decide on an appropriate read aloud. The selection of the book is critical to the other components of the lesson. It must be a trade book and consist of quality literature of interest to the students and can be any genre. As you analyze the book, think about the comprehension strategies necessary to understand the story.
• The second step is to decide how you will model the use of these strategies during your read aloud. Also consider how the book lends itself to reader response, what questions you may ask, and how the author used language or style. These aspects constitute the think aloud step of your lesson.
• Finally, decide how you are going to connect the story to writing. The story may lend itself to writing about a personal experience similar to what happened in the story, an extension or another ending to the story, or writing another version of the story. Be sure to use chart paper to model the writing of your story. Remember that the writing aloud portion of your lesson is for the purpose of modeling the sometimes messy thinking process of composing a story and mechanics usage. Once you have completed the write aloud, then assign the students to write their own story. Be prepared for students to need additional time to complete their writing assignment.

You must turn in a completed, typed lesson plan, the chart paper on which you modeled your write aloud story and all of the students’ writing in a manila folder or envelop. Look at the scoring rubric for this assignment when planning the lesson.

You will not be turning in a video of your lesson. Therefore, in order for me to understand what happened during your lesson, the instructional strategies and self-reflection must be of extremely high quality. The instructional strategies section of your lesson plan must list step-by-step instructions that a third party could follow. Please write what you plan to say during the both think-aloud and write-aloud and reference page numbers as appropriate. The self-reflection should answer the questions: What happened during the lesson? How did students respond? Did the lesson go as planned? What went well? What would you change? What did you learn?

Scoring Rubric for the Read/Think/Write Aloud Lesson

Criteria / Lab / Class
1. / The read aloud was a trade book of quality literature, motivating, and interesting. / P/F
2. / The think aloud activity modeled comprehension strategies appropriate to the text selected and involved the student in reader response and analysis of the authors’ use of language. / P/F
3. / The write aloud activity was an appropriate extension of the text and allowed for modeling of thinking and mechanics of composition. / P/F
*4. / All children’s work was turned in and student’s write aloud on chart paper. / P/F
5. / The lesson plan was turned in, typed and complete (see lesson plan scoring rubric on the back of this sheet). Points will be deducted forincorrect spelling, typographical errors, and grammatical mistakes. / 25

Total

*The lesson plan portion of this assignment is for a grade in the class. The actual teaching of the lesson is required to pass the practicum. If the lesson is not conducted, as evidenced through #4 above, credit will not be given for this assignment.

Student Learning Plan for Guided Reading Lesson and Read Write Think Aloud Lesson

by Mary Vause

Standards: What state and national standards are addressed?

IRA/NCTE 1 (reading a wide range of print and nonprint texts)

IRA/NCTE 3 (range of strategies to comprehend and interpret texts)

IRA/NCTE 5 (employing wide range of strategies in writing)
SOL 4.7 (student will write effective explanations)

SOL 4.8 (student will edit writing)
Intended Audience: Grade 4 non-inclusion, predominantly African-American and Hispanic class of students at Greenwood Elementary in Newport News. Based on their writing, most students appear to be in or near the “syllables and affixes” stage of writing according to Words Their Way.
Background/Overview:The focus is on teaching students how to take a position in response to a question and also how to support it with evidence from the text.

Behavioral Objectives:Given a read aloud, modeled writing by the teacher, and a class discussion, students will take a stance in response to a question and support it with evidence from the text.

Resources/Materials, Time, Space:The resources needed areUncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree King Mitchell, chart paper, markers, and magnets to hold the chart paper to the blackboard. You will need the entire front of the classroom in front of the blackboard. There are 15 fourth-grade students in the class. You will need 15 minutes to read and discuss the text, 15 minutes to brainstorm and model and discuss your sample writing response, and at least 15 minutes for students to complete their writing assignments.

The Lesson Proper

Introduction:Hold up the book and tell students it’s about “a little girl living in the South in the early 1900s. It’s about a family member, her great uncle, who she admires a lot.” Tell students there are some things in the book that they may have learned about in history lessons. Ask, “What was life like for African-Americans in the South in the early 1900s?” Try to elicit responses such as Jim Crow laws that kept blacks and whites segregated, different bathrooms and water fountains for blacks and whites, etc. Next ask, “Who knows what the Great Depression is?” Try to elicit responses about the stock market crash in 1929, the bank failure, and possible connections to the current recession they may have heard about in the news recently.

Tell students, “Pay close attention while I read this book, because afterwards we’re going to do a writing assignment about the book.”

Read the book aloud with expression, showing pictures while you read and pausing periodically to summarize, make connections to history, and ask questions such as the following:

• “What is Uncle Jed’s dream?” [on the page where Uncle Jed is pretending to give his 5-year-old great-niece a haircut]
• “Why didn’t people believe that Uncle Jed could open his own barbershop?” [on the page that shows Uncle Jed writing a horse across the county to cut a client’s hair]
• “How do you think the little girl’s family feels when they have to wait until all the white patients are seen even though their daughter is unconscious?” [on the page in which the family waits in the “colored” waiting room at the doctor’s office]
• “How would you feel if you lost all the money for your dream?” [on the page where Uncle Jed has just learned that the $3,000 he saved up to buy his barbershop has been lost because of bank failures following the stock market crash]
• “Who is this lady in the chair in Uncle Jed’s barbershop? How do we know a lot of time has passed?” [on the next to last page in which the narrator, now a grown woman, gets a haircut from Uncle Jed at his newly opened barbershop]
• After the final page of the book, ask students what they learned about Uncle Jed’s character, and have them give specific examples from the text to support their statements.

Next, put up a piece of chart paper on the board that reads, “After the stock market crashed and he lost all his savings, do you think it was a good idea for Uncle Jed to keep saving up money for his barbershop?” On the same sheet of paper, draw a graphic organizer with “Yes, I agree” on one side and “No, I disagree” on the other with a line going down the middle of the page. Tell students that there is no right or wrong answer to this question, but whichever position they take they need to back up with evidence from the text. Brainstorm with students ideas for each side of the graphic organizer and write them down. (Examples can include “Uncle Jed was really happy when he finally achieved his dream” on the agree side, and “Uncle Jed didn’t get his barbershop until he was very old and didn’t get to enjoy it for very long before he died” on the disagree side.)

Then on the board beside the graphic organizer, post a writing sample you already completed (in order to save time) that supports the position that it was a good idea for Uncle Jed to keep saving his money for his barbershop. In order to encourage them to read all the way through the writing sample, challenge students to locate spelling errors that you may have “accidentally” made since this is just your “sloppy copy” / rough draft. Ask students what they notice about the first sentence of this draft, eliciting that you (the author) stated your position in response to the question. Help students see that after stating your opinion you backed it up with examples from the text as well as your own reasoning (e.g., “It is important to follow your dreams”).

Next, model a writing response that disagrees with the prompt (i.e., “No, I don’t think it was a good idea for Uncle Jed to keep saving up money for his barbershop”). Make sure the first sentence explicitly states your opinion and the following three to four sentences back up your opinion with examples from the text. Challenge students to spot typos or grammatical errors in your draft.

Finally, tell students that they will decide where they stand in response to this question and will write a response stating their opinion and then backing it up with evidence from the text and reasoning. Take down your drafts so that students do not imitate them too closely, but leave up the brainstorming graphic organizers so that students can refer to it as they write.
Instructional Strategies:Asking the bulleted questions from the previous section during the read aloud will help students comprehend those points in the text and will also help them recall the evidence they will need in their written responses.

When going over your modeled writing responses with students, emphasize the importance of explicitly stating one’s opinion in a complete sentence and then backing it up with evidence from the text. Questions to ask can include:

• “Is there a right or wrong answer to this question?”
• “What do I need to do in the first sentence?”
• “Will it be very convincing if I just state my opinion and then don’t back it up?”

Differentiation: The questions asked during the read aloud target different cognitive levels. Some questions are detail questions, others are inference, others ask for personal connections to the text, etc. This should allow students of varied ability levels to respond. Also, provide targeted instruction to individual students as you walk around the room while they write. Some students will need help with logical reasoning, others with grammatical errors, others with coming up with ideas, etc.

Accommodations/Modifications: Have students with visual impairments sit at the very front of the classroom. If possible, give them large-print copies of the drafts you plan to write ahead of time. Keep an eye on students with ADHD/behavioral problems, keeping them involved in the discussion as much as possible.

Closure:As students finish their drafts, have them trade papers with a classmate near them who is also finished so that they can peer edit each others work. Tell them to check and make sure that their written response contains an opening sentence that explicitly states their position and that the subsequent sentences contain supporting evidence from the text.

Assessment/Evaluation:
Formative:During the read aloud and modeled writing, pay attention to students’ responses to questions in order to ascertain their understanding. For students who are quiet, monitor body language and posture to determine if they are paying attention.
Summative:Collect students’ written responses and analyze them to determine if they state their position, support the position with details from the text, use logical examples, and use grade-appropriate spelling patterns and grammar.

Reflection

Students were very attentive during the read aloud, and many were eager to answer questions and share connections to the text (e.g., “I learned about Rosa Parks. She didn’t give up her seat on the bus” during the discussion about the Jim Crow South). I was also pleased that the students stayed on task throughout their writing assignment, and after they finished they peer edited each others’ work quietly.However, half the class never raised their hand to answer questions or share, even though many in that category appeared to be listening attentively. I tried calling on a couple students who had not raised their hands in order to get them to participate, but they were very reticent so I finally just went back to calling on students who volunteered. It was rather frustrating.

Looking over the written responses that students turned in, 11 of the 22 students, or exactly half, adequately stated their position in a complete sentence and supported it with at least two examples from the text. The other half of the class did not adequately state their position, or did not use adequate evidence from the text, or both. Many students wrote “Yes” or “No” at the beginning of their paper and then proceeded straight into evidence form the text. I did not consider this adequate because it could leave a reader with the question “Yes, what?” or “No, what?” Other students stated their position clearly but became sidetracked by the secondary theme of Uncle Jed paying for his great-niece’s life-saving surgery early in the book. While this was an important part of the book as a whole, it was not relevant in agreeing or disagreeing with the assertion that it was a good idea for Uncle Jed to continue saving money even after he lost everything in the Great Depression. Some students, including some who adequately stated a position and provided sufficient evidence to support it from the text, interspersed their writing with evidence from the text that supported the opposite position. It appears that this kind of writing assignment is a fairly new concept for these fourth-grade students and that they will need further practice with it in the future.

If I teach this lesson again in the future, I will be even more explicit about the need for a complete first sentence that clearly states the author’s position. I thought I had been quite explicit about this, but I clearly need to be more so. Perhaps creating a poster that reminds students to do this and hanging it prominently in the front of the room would help. It would also help to tell students that if they simply write “Yes” or “No” at the beginning of their paper, it will leave readers wondering “Yes, what?” or “No, what?” Then when I walk around the room giving students feedback on their writing and spot a lone “Yes” or “No” on their papers, I can ask “Yes, what?” or “No, what?” and the students will immediately remember what they need to do. I should also help students more with logical reasoning. In the brainstorming graphic organizer, I might put one of their ideas in the wrong column to generate a discussion on how using evidence that supports the opposite side weakens one’s argument. Finally, during the read aloud I put too much emphasis on the narrator’s sickness and Uncle Jed’s saving her. This is an important part of the story and it does deserve discussion, but in this type of lesson it sidetracked students too much. They were too preoccupied with this secondary theme when they should have been focused on supporting their position.

Student Learning Plan Rubric

Criteria / Exceeds Expectation / Meets Expectation / Does Not Meet Expectation
Intended Audience
Identify the target grade, range of abilities, and prerequisite skills.