BLOG ENTRY#10 Interactive Read-Aloud

After reading chapter 6, Interactive Read-Aloud: Talking Our Way Through Texts, I learned about the three most important factors for a successful and interactive read-aloud for children:

1.     Carefully selected texts for clearly defined instructional purposes based on student’s needs

2.     Time provided for meaningful conversation around these texts by teachers and students

3.     Expressive oral reading (performance of  the reader)

The first point seems simple, since during the past decades, a huge amount of quality children’s books have been created, covering the topics of different cultures, arts, lifestyles, history, nature, animals and all kinds of stuffs you can think of. Proper books for instruction can be found by recommendation list online or books. Teacher needs to sort them into categories that are ready to use.

Second, the talk part is very beneficial for English language learners and struggling students. By giving the chance to hear peers talking about the book’s vocabulary and other knowledge, the ELLs are provided a strong language model. By asking open-ended questions, teachers are able to trigger students’ deep thinking of the texts, and encourage them to think like a proficient reader step by step.

Third, the performance of the teacher is also very important. Children are easily attracted to the voice, the emotions and expressions of the teacher when s/he reading aloud a stories. And the more the children are attracted, the more they will listen, the more they will be thinking about the texts. The performance is rather important, but it takes practice to make perfect.

Simply put, for a good read-aloud, the teacher needs to choose a set of good books, encouraging meaningful conversations by asking questions before, during and after the read-aloud, and to perform the read-aloud with proper tones, emotions, expressions, gestures, etc. As a future educator, I feel these three points are important but takes time to accomplish beautifully. During my internship, I have been watching the teachers read aloud to the children. Some teachers are very expressive and try to engage children into discussions and conversations during the reading, while some teacher just read off the book without leaving time for children to think about the text. I prefer the former read aloud style but understand that a good read-aloud takes practice and the knowledge of what the children need and are interested in. I am looking forward to reading more in the future with children.