Think Aloud!!

     Have you ever tried to describe to someone what you were thinking and why you were thinking it and it didn't make any sense?  You got the look of "What in the world are you talking about?"  Think Aloud's are a great way to combat this confusion and look of disbelief.  We have been talking about Think Aloud's in our class and have been asked to conduct one.  The biggest take away that I got from the conversation is that it is a time for students to read a piece of literature, be told to stop, and then think out loud.  Sounds simple enough.
     I went to my classroom the other week and conducted a Think Aloud with my small group of readers.  They were reading the book Count Karlstein.  I explained to the students that we would be conducting a Think Aloud today and these are the steps that I am going to use.  I first off started talking to my students about when we think out loud it is as if we are making our thinking come alive!  I talked to them about how students sometimes use a strategy of visualization and how important that strategy is to a Think Aloud.  Morgan says, "Engaging students in creative role-play allows students "to experience the feelings of those in other places and times and learn from them."  The objective is to help students perceive events through the lens of others and relate those experiences to what they know."  I did a little exercise with them where I had them close their eyes and imagine that they were somewhere spectacular.  What did that place look like?  Have you been there before?  Were there people there?  What were you doing?  What did it smell like?  After the exercise we talked about the places that my students thought about.  I told them that that is exactly what we are going to be doing today.  We are going to be reading Count Karlstein and I am going to randomly stop you and I am going to ask you to think out loud.  I told them that I would model first by reading a section of the book, stop myself and I would make my thinking come to life!  Then I told them that I wanted to go around our circle and have them demonstrate to me while I was still engaging with prompting questions or comments, and then I made it known to them at the very end I was going to strictly observe and they were going to lead the Think Aloud.  Everything went exceptional until it came time for them to do the Think Aloud on their own.
     "We believe that exposing children to multicultural literature is important, but exposure without teacher guidance is not likely to lead to a deeper understanding of the world and the people in it, it is not easy to really walk in the shoes of others." -Morgan.  This is something that my lesson was lacking.  I really need to do a lesson devoted to me modeling what I wanted to happen and what I wanted the students to get out of the experience from doing the Think Aloud.  If I were to have had more time and more preparation I would have done an entire modeling lesson plan or just make sure that during the Think Aloud lesson that modeling was more of the main focus so the students were able to comprehend.  Morgan says, "Students need repeated practice over time exploring multiple perspectives with varied and multiple texts, both fiction and nonfiction."  With more planning time I would have definitely completed this task.  Like Morgan says it is hard to walk in others shoes which is why our students need so much practice with a Think Aloud.  Think Aloud's can create higher order/deeper thinking and can help students comprehension skills dramatically when they are able to indulge themselves in the literature.