The Person Who Does the Talking Does the Learning Part II

The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension coupled with growing children’s vocabulary and language abilities. One way to achieve this is through extensive exposure to text and opportunities to talk about the stories they have read or are read to them.  As classroom observers of literacy for many years, one thing that we have noticed is the limited amount of time that students have to process and discuss the complex nature of the texts. 

Molly Ness in her article When Readers Ask Questions: Inquiry-Based reading Instruction states the following, “Children are naturally curious and come to our elementary classrooms well versed in posing questions to their parents and caregivers. On an average day, children ages 2-10 typically ask their mothers an average of 288 questions (Frazier, Gelman, & Wellman, 2009). According to Chouinard, Harris, and Maratsos (2007), children ask between 400 and 1,200 questions each week. Yet, as children begin formal schooling, their questions often taper off, as instruction today provides little room for student-generated questions (Dillon, 1988; Graesser & Person, 1994; Van der Meij, 1988). Furthermore, the questions that kids do ask are mostly factual questions (Chin & Osborn, 2008). It is likely that students don’t ask more questions because of teacher-dominated classroom discourse (Cazden, 2001) and the limited time of classroom instruction.  In classrooms today, students do far more question answering than question asking; the typical schoolchild answers an “interminable number of low-level literal questions” (Allington, 2014, p.18), with teachers posing 300-400 questions each day (Leven & Long 1981)”. After reading this, it gave us pause to stop and think about what is truly occurring in classrooms today. 

After reading that excerpt it seems that our need to get through all the curriculum is having an adverse effect on students. We are stifling students by not allowing them to use their natural curiosity to propel and enhance their learning. Stop and pause for a minute and think about how often you allow students to process a portion of text by asking a question or allowing students to pose their own questions? The key to processing is the much needed time to think and engage in conversation with peers.  Researchers suggest that the most valuable aspect of the read-aloud activity is that it gives children experience with decontextualized language, requiring them to make sense of ideas that are about something beyond the here and now (Cochran-Smith, 1984; Heath, 1983; Snow, 1993; Snow & Dickinson, 1991; Snow, Tabors, Nicholson, & Kurland, 1995). 

The read-aloud mini-lesson is one place where students have an opportunity to interact with text that is above their reading level. While the teacher reads the text, students get a glimpse of how proficient readers interact with text as their teacher models their thinking. Another step in this process is the need for the teacher to get a glimpse into the processing that students are doing. This happens when time is allotted for students to discuss with other students higher level questions that are posed by the teacher. Not for the purpose of a correct answer, but for the purpose of revealing or uncovering what students are focusing on or thinking about. This might also reveal any misconceptions they may have about the text.  

In planning the read-aloud mini-lesson, teachers need to be intentional and make informed decision for their students. There is not a recipe for doing this. We are going to give you some practical suggestions, ideas or take-aways so you are ready to plan your own read-aloud mini-lesson.

1. Select a text that matches the lesson focus or objective.
1. Make sure you take into account the length of the text. If the text is longer, are you going to have to stretch it over two days or can you accomplish your goal by leaving the story unfinished if there isn’t enough time to read it all of the way through? What is the best use of your precious instructional minutes?

2. Determine the stopping points where you are going to think out loud in order to model how to process the text.
1. At these stopping points, teachers are possibly asking questions such as these generic ones: what do you notice? what is happening in the story? what do you think might happen next?
2. This is where students need a few minutes of processing time to think and talk with other students and then share what they are thinking and how they are responding to the text. As students respond, teachers are getting helpful insights into how students are thinking and reacting to the text. This is the information that aids in future lesson planning.
3. A general rule of thumb about the number of stopping points, once again determined by the length of the text, is on average three. More talk time allows students to process to achieve our goal which is comprehension.  

If the idea of how to do this seems daunting and overwhelming to you, Text Talk by Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown is a great resource that is available to aid with this. Text Talk is designed for grades K-3. The program includes the read-aloud book, active talk notes that help teachers engage students through: open-ended questions, follow-up questions, word explanations and use of student background knowledge, as well as direct instruction notes to aid in vocabulary development. In using this resource, we found the texts to be highly engaging and interesting for students. One caution we have is that you be very intentional about planning the lesson as we found them to be quite long. We have included a link to an informative Text Talk article.  

In closing, we invite you to investigate how much time students are given the opportunity to engage in student-focused conversations during Read Aloud with one of these ways: 

1.    Videotape yourself and reflect on the amount of student talk opportunities

2.    Ask a colleague or a coach to observe and discuss what they notice about the student talk opportunities during Read Aloud.

Please comment below with any questions you may have or ways you have increased student talk opportunities within your classroom. We would also like you to share ideas for future topics you would like us to address.

Mary & Kanika

The Person Who Does the Talking Does the Learning

Happy New Year!  2019 brings with it new energies, new excitement and more 
opportunities to help set students up to be more literate beings.  With the break, we find
ourselves often missing the energy and hustle of the school day. As teachers we were 
filled with the wonderment of thinking, what experiences have students had over weekends 
or breaks? Who will be filled with stories on the first day?  As consultants, we still often find 
ourselves walking into a school after a break with anticipation of what kids have to share? 
How their read aloud will come to life even more now with increased experiences of the 
holidays. How their comprehension of  Knuffle Bunny, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse or even
Watson’s Go to Birmingham might be deepened based on the broadening of their schema 
over the break.  

Increasingly over the last few years, the time for these 
conversations has been minimized by the realization that the end of the year is fast 
approaching, the gravitational pull of state testing and all of the impending commitments
that tell us our students have not acquired all of the skills necessary to prepare them 
for what will deem them “acceptable” or “proficient”.  We ignore all of the research 
telling us that conversation with peers improves comprehension and engagement 
with texts. We revise our schedules to allow more time for skills and drills, 
teaching specific skills in isolation and pushing toward more question and 
answer episodes where the teacher is doing most of the talking. It feels 
counter-intuitive to give them more talk time when our minutes are limited and there’s
so much information to cram into their little heads.  We continue to view students as
empty vessels that we have to fill, instead of seeing them as having important information 
and life experiences that contribute to the goal of learning. We’ve all been guilty of being 
in the middle of the lesson and seeing the blank stares and realizing “they’re not getting it”. 
So what do we do? We talk more and teach more because if we talk slower, talk louder, 
or try it one hundred more ways they will eventually get it. Only to look at their faces 
10, 20, 30 minutes later, just as confused and you are utterly exhausted and frustrated.  
Right? Been there, done that. However, all of this goes against what research tells us about 
how kids process, evaluate, retain and utilize information.

John Hattie tells us that based on analyses of classroom observations, on average
teachers pose about 200-300 questions per day and speak about 80% of the time.  
Richard Allington’s research teaches us that talk is an essential element in elementary 
literacy instruction. It is often underutilized, but the most easy-to-implement means of 
improving comprehension.  Allington found that in highly effective classrooms teachers 
used a more conversational means of talk vs. interrogational. Students talk more with 
their peers about ideas, concepts, hypotheses, strategies and responses to others’ thinking.  

One way we can increase student talk time is to think about our initial questions.  
How well do they initiate or invigorate students ability to stimulate and thrust ownership 
of conversations into the hands of the students, while also deepening understanding 
and transfer of concepts? Look at this conversation in Guided Reading about the text  
Katie Woo: Red, White, and Blue by Fran Manushkin.  The story is about a girl named 
Katie and her friends that are celebrating the Fourth of July by attending a parade and 
then enjoying a party in Katie’s backyard.  The teacher is attempting to have students 
think more deeply about Katie’s perspective about the day.

(after reading the first chapter)

T: Why is the 4th of July Katie’s favorite holiday? (Factual)

S: She likes it best of all.

T: But why is it her favorite?

S: She’s having a parade in her backyard.

S: She having a party too!

T: Why do they put decorations on their bike?

S: They wanted their bikes to look nice.

T: But did the text say they wanted their bikes to look nice.

S: No, but when I put up decorations on my bike, I want it to look nice.

S: Yeah, me too. 
T: Where are they going?  To the _____

S: parade

T: So why would Katie, Pedro, and JoJo decorate their bikes?

S: To look pretty for the parade.

The teacher in this excerpt made many attempts to get the children to expand their 
responses and think more broadly about what was happening, but only elaborated 
with a few words.  This conversation started off with a narrow factual question and 
continued to ping-pong from the teacher to the student. Based on the Text Talk 
research of Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown, we know that initial questions 
should be open questions that require students to describe and explain text ideas, 
rather than recall and retrieve words from the text.  Allington also suggests that interactions 
with the texts are more meaningful and deep when children are analyzing, commenting 
and comparing the text rather than recalling or telling information.

Take a look at this conversation about the same text:

T: What do we know about Katie so far? (inferential)

S: Katie loves holidays especially the Fourth of July.

S: Yeah, she is excited about having a party and parade in her backyard.

T: Do all of the characters introduced share Katie’s excitement or perspective about the
 Fourth of July? Make sure you have evidence to back up your argument.

S: Yes, because Pedro and Jojo decorated their bikes with red, white and blue decorations.

S: I agree, and when Katie said she was excited about the parade and party, Pedro told her 
don’t forget about the fireworks, so he must like the fireworks the best.  

S: Oooh!  I want to add on, the parents were excited too.

T: Whose parents?

S: Katie’s parents because when they rode by in the parade on their bikes, everybody was 
cheering and Katie’s mom and dad yell at them “Way to go!”  

S: I didn’t think about the parents.  Look they have their arms up cheering in the picture.  
Yeah, I agree with Juan. They had to be excited too because they were having the party.  Katie 
is just a kid so she can’t throw a party by herself so her parents had to want to celebrate too.  

The teacher in this excerpt talked about the same book but allowed for a broader
 initial question that set the conversation on a trajectory that allowed students to 
think more deeply about not only the main character but also the secondary 
characters in the story.  Readers were better able to make connections and in 
conjunction with revelations from peers, they heightened their understanding of 
the story and the ability to think about the perspectives of multiple characters.

Doing the work of intentionally planning and writing good open-ended, inferential 
and critical thinking questions is what is needed for students to be able to deepen 
students' understanding and ability to discuss the subject matter.  

Let’s see how we can provide more opportunities for kids to take ownership of their 
learning by broadening their conversations so that they will think more deeply about 
their reading and writing.  We invite you to investigate how much time students are 
engaging in student-focused conversations in one of these ways:

1. Videotape yourself and reflect on the ratio of student talk versus teacher talk;
2. Ask a colleague or a coach to observe and discuss what they notice about the 
   amount of time students are engaging in deep reading and writing conversations 
   (partnerships, book clubs, group talk).
3. Try out an initial question that is open-ended and allows readers to deepen their
    understanding of the information the author wants the reader to learn in the text.

Comment below on ways you have increased student talk opportunities within your classroom.

Kanika & Mary