Making+the+Very+Most+of+Classroom+Read-Alouds+to+Promote+Comprehension+and+Vocabulary

Santoro, L. E., Chard, D. J., Howard, L., & Baker, S. K. (2008). Making the //very// most of classroom read-alouds to promote comprehension and vocabulary. //The Reading Teacher, 61//(5), 396-408. Retrieved June 21, 2009, from Academic Search Complete.


 * Quotes || Reaction ||
 * 1. "Melissa considered using more read-aloud opportunities to teach vocabulary and comprehension. Her literacy coach was supportive but requested that she identify specific studies documenting the effectiveness of read-aloud instruction for teaching vocabulary and comprehension. Melissa could not find support for such practices in the professional journals to which she had access. Because many teachers share Melissa's frustrations, we studied the daily use of read-alouds to introduce content not addressed in core reading material and to explicitly teach comprehension skills and vocabulary in first grade." (p. 396)

2. "There is considerable interest in this topic despite the few specific studies on read-aloud practices." (p. 396)

3. "Familiarity with narrative text structure gives students a framework for discussing stories and retelling. As a story is read, the teacher can help students discuss who the story is about, what happened first, and what happened at the end." (p. 397)

4. "Our read-alouds incorporated structured, interactive teacher and student text-based discussions. Rather than simply reading aloud without discussion, we hoped to create opportunities for children to reflect on the storyline (or the text's language) to promote comprehension." (p. 397)

5. "Our federally funded project was to design and evaluate a framework for teaching comprehension of complex narrative and information texts to first-grade students in general education classrooms during read-aloud time (Baker, Chard, & Edwards, 2002)." (p. 397)

6. "We compared the performance of students who participated in the read-aloud curriculum with students from classrooms where teachers used their own read-aloud texts and procedures. Our results indicated that enhancing read-alouds with comprehension strategies and text-based discussions made a positive difference in student performance." (p. 398)

7. "To maintain integrity of the read-aloud experience, optimize instructional time, and make the lessons feasible, we tried to keep daily lessons to between 20 and 30 minutes." (p. 398) 

8. "We next considered curriculum structure, constructing lessons around a set of week-long 'units' consisting of one narrative text and one information text on a common science or social studies theme or topic. The curriculum alternated between a series of science units and a series of social studies units." (p. 399)

9. "Criteria we considered when selecting books and determining the themes for read-aloud instruction included the book's topic, target audience, length, cost, availability, representation of diversity, text coherence, and potential for connections with other texts and topics addressed in first-grade curricula." (p. 399) 

10. "In the before reading portion of the lesson we identified the book type (narrative or information) and prepared students for either listening to a story or learning from an expository text." (p. 402)

11. "During reading, the lessons focused on text structure in the narrative texts, such as whom the story was about, what happened first, what happened next, and what happened at the end of the story."

12. "Questioning during reading also included higher level thinking skills (making predictions with text-based confirmations and drawing inferences)." (p. 403)

13. "After reading, teachers would model a story or information book retelling using a common text structure framework." (p. 403) 

14. "In terms of overall comprehension, as measured by a composite of all the comprehension measures used in our study, the study benefited the read-aloud project students. In terms of narrative text specifically, students in read-aloud classrooms had longer retellings than students from classrooms that did not follow read-aloud lessons and procedures. Students in read-aloud classrooms also had retellings that reflected a depth of text comprehension." (p. 407)

15. "Incorporating comprehension instruction and read-alouds appears to be a promising way to boost student comprehension. There are certainly times when read-alouds can simply focus on the enjoyment of books; however, read-alouds must be carefully planned if they are to affect students' comprehension. Making the very most of read-aloud time requires teaching students to recognize the differences between narrative and information text structure, to know the meanings of target vocabulary, and to become active participants in purposeful discussions about texts." (p. 407) || 3. As the teacher dicusses story structure repeatedly with each read-aloud, students being to understand elements of narrative stories.

7. This amount of time is reasonable for a read-aloud lesson.

8. The balance of fiction and nonfiction is important. The researchers ensured that the texts were related to the first grade curriculum.

12. Including higher-order thinking skills is important during read-aloud time since the teacher is available to provide feedback and guide responses.

15. With all of the curriculum teachers must cover in one year, it is reasonable to combine read-alouds with reading standards. ||

Tags: read-aloud, research lite, elementary school, reasons for reading aloud <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">, <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">choosing material, <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">reading aloud effectively