Text Talk Reflection

Text Talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences for young children

Isabel L. Beck/Margaret G. McKeown

 

        This article was full of very useful information that all teachers would greatly benefit from.  The “Text Talk” article discusses the benefits of doing a read-aloud the correct way and how students gain much more out of what you are reading if you follow a few simple guidelines.  Some tips that I picked up from this article include how to select the proper text, types of questions to ask and when, when to show the books illustrations, background knowledge, and last but certainly not least vocabulary. 

        The most important thing to remember when picking out text for a read-aloud is that it must be intellectually challenging for the students and allow them the opportunity to explore and discuss their own thought and  ideas.   A book that meets these guidelines does not rely on illustrations to tell the story.  There should always be initial questions the teacher uses to get the conversation started; these questions should also be “guided” by the teacher toward important points in the story.  Ask students “open” questions instead of questions that have them recall facts or have a yes or no answer.  Teachers should also use follow up questions to help build on student responses and encourage them to elaborate when sharing and discussing responses.  When it comes to showing book illustrations it is very important to read first.  Read a page or two, pose questions and allow students time to discuss and share answers, then show the illustrations.  The reason this is so important is because if students are shown the illustrations before the text is read they draw from the illustrations instead of the text or they ignore the text all together.  Background knowledge is also important and a great tool to help build meaning from the text, however the teacher must somewhat guide the students so they do not stray from the text and begin incorporating their own experiences and knowledge from outside sources.  The last thing to remember is to use the story you are reading to help build the students vocabulary.  One example of this might be to periodically ask students what they think certain words might mean, or another idea might be to use some of the words from the story later in a spelling test or some other type of activity.