Interactive Read Aloud

Workshop Overview (Screencast)

What is an Interactive Read Aloud?

An interactive read aloud...

• "...Is a whole-group instructional context in which you read aloud a selected text to the whole class, occasionally and selectively pausing for conversation. Students think about, talk about, and respond to the text as a whole group or in pairs, triads, or quads. Both reader and listeners actively process the language, ideas, and meaning of the text. " (F&P Literacy Team, January 2019).

• Also known as a read aloud with accountable talk

• Is an opportunity for teachers to expose students to different genres of text, texts outside of independent reading level, and a time for students to discuss their thoughts and ideas (Edgar, R., p. 6, 2012).

• Can serve as a way to informally assess a student's comprehension abilities

What Does the Research Say?

• The foundations of an Interactive Read Aloud were based on "children becoming proficient users of language" (Barrentine, p. 37, 1996)

• It combines the ideas of Cambourne's conditions of learning (1988) and Goldenberg's instructional conversations (1993)

  • According to Cambourne, children must be engaged in a demonstration, referring to the points in which students respond personally to a story.

    • engagement cannot be forced, only encouraged

  • According to Goldenberg, instructional conversations are natural, spontaneous, and "free from didactic characteristics associated with formal teaching" (Barrentine, p. 38, 1996).

    • Should not be focused on teaching with any ulterior motives

Key Terms

• Accountable talk: conversations that are meaningful, respectful, and beneficial for both the speaker and listener in the conversation

• Active Listening: a pattern of listening in which a listener hears the speaker to understand, rather than just to answer

• Frustration reading level: text for which a reader does not have adequate background level for a topic and/or cannot meet criteria for instructional levels of accuracy and rate. Think of frustration levels as those levels that require extensive or even moderate assistance from an educator. *

• Genre: a category of composition [literary in this context] characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter

• Independent reading level: the highest level at which a reader has adequate background knowledge for the topic, and can access text very quickly and with very few errors. Think of independent level as the highest level you would ask a child to read without help *

• Instructional reading level: the highest level at which a reader is not independent, but has adequate background knowledge for a topic, and can access text quickly and with no or few errors. Think of independent level as the highest level you would ask a child to read with only a small amount of assistance *

• Paraphrase: express the general meaning something spoken by someone else using different wording, specifically to acheive clarity

• Predict: to say that a specified thing will happen in the future

• Visualize: to form a mental imagine of something; to imagine in one's own mind

• Summarize: give a brief statements about the main point(s) of something

• Turn-and-talk (also known as pair and share): the opportunity for students to sit and talk with a partner to briefly dicuss a certain point or topic in which partners engage in active listening

*(University of Utah, 2016).

Strategies

• According to its original developers, an Interactive Read Aloud has 7 key components that should to be utilized. The teacher must:

  1. Read the book to themselves more than once to prepare

  2. Think about the goals and expectations for students and identify the process and strategy information being conveyed by the story

  3. Identify where student predictions about the story should be considered and shared, so that interjections are made at critical points in a story

  4. Anticipate where you will need to build students' background knowledge

  5. Plan how you will phrase any questions, invitations to predict, and anticipate what student responses might be

  6. Even after planning the Interactive Read Aloud, be prepared to pivot and adjust any plans

  7. After reading the story, create opportunities for students to explore that story and more in personal and exciting ways

(Barrentine, p. 38, 1996)

• Modern research strategies say to:

  • Model thinking and allow students to let you think aloud

  • Prompt using a strategey to connect the story to another text, to the world, or to the self

    • Scaffold students to be able to make these connections on their own

  • Teachers should demonstrate using new processes or pointing out literary devices

    • Model visualizing, sketching, paraphrasing, and summarizing for students

(AMNH, 2016).

Differentiation

There are many ways to differentiate an interactive read aloud. There can be adaptations that depend on student needs, available resources, and teacher expectations. These differentiation methods can be adjusted for struggling and gifted learners, and those who need to be more actively engaged in lessons.

Ways to help struggling learners:

• Give an adapted copy of the book being read aloud to struggling students (color coded words, bolded terms, glossary)

• Give students a notebook to draw what is happening in the story that they can go back and reference

• Have the student write bullets that remind them of the important characters, plot, or details they want to remember

Ways to support gifted learners:

• Have gifted learners read a related book before or after the read aloud and compare and contrast the books

• Ask students to hold a puppet and act out the story as it is being read

• Have learner hold up colored flash cards when a main idea or important theme is revealed in the story

Ways to engage students who need it:

• Give a copy of the book being read aloud

• Allow students to hold or play with a text-related object (plush version of the main character in a story)

• Give the student a coloring page related to the story to color as the listen

(Kluth, 2011)

Assessment

In this interactive classroom slide, students are able to select a book that was read aloud from a bookshelf, and a related assessment will be linked to it. Most of these links to assessments would be formative assessments, but all of them consider multiple aspects of the text to check for understanding.

There are several different styles of assessment featured, including: comprehension questions, graphic organizers, illustration activites, literal questions, inferential questions, a Venn diagram, and a story organizer.

Anchor Charts

Video in Practice

Resources to Learn More

Learning Station

Handout

This handout serves as a template for teachers to plan an Interactive Read Aloud.

(Bessick, 2020)

References

• Barrentine, S. (1996). Engaging with Reading through Interactive Read-Alouds. The Reading Teacher, 50(1), 36-43. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20201705

• Bessick, P. (2020, August 15). How to Plan an Interactive Read Aloud in 5 Easy Steps. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://paigebessick.com/2017/02/how-to-plan-interactive-read-aloud-in-5.html

• Edgar, R. (2012). Bringing Picture Books to Life [Scholarly project]. In NESA. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://www.nesacenter.org/uploaded/conferences/SEC/2012/teacher_handouts/Edgar_Bringing_Picture_Books_Alive_Through_Accountable_Talk.pdf

• Fitzgerald, M. (2018, November 01). Interactive Read-Alouds: Build Strong Student-Teacher Relationships. Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.hmhco.com/blog/interactive-read-alouds

• Interactive Read-Alouds: AMNH. (2016). Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/integrating-literacy-strategies-into-science-instruction/interactive-read-alouds

• Kluth, P. (2011, March 03). 20 Ways to Adapt the Read Aloud. Retrieved November 05, 2020, from https://www.paulakluth.com/readings/literacy/20-ways-to-adapt-the-read-aloud/

• Lynch, E. (2020, May 12). Interactive Read Aloud Strategies-23 Lessons to Use at Home. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.sadlier.com/school/ela-blog/interactive-read-aloud-strategies-23-printable-read-aloud-lessons-to-get-you-started

• Teacher Read-Aloud That Models Reading for Deep Understanding - ReadWriteThink. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/teacher-read-aloud-that-30799.html

• Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://www.teachersfirst.com/spectopics/interactiveaudiobooks.cfm

• The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team. (2019, January 25). What is Interactive Read-Aloud? [Web log post]. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://fpblog.fountasandpinnell.com/what-is-interactive-read-aloud

• University of Utah Reading Clinic. (2016). Reading Levels. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://uurc.utah.edu/General/ReadLevels.php