WinstonSalem Forsyth County Schools Interactive Read Alouds Collaborative

Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools Interactive Read Alouds Collaborative Learning Conference August 13, 2015

Time Spent Reading Each Day Exposed to 8, 000 words per year < 1 minute 4. 6 minutes 20 minutes Exposed to 282, 000 words per year Exposed to 1, 800, 000 words per year Statistics derived from Shaywitz, S. (2003)

What is a Read Aloud? Read Aloud is a strategy in which a teacher sets aside time to read orally to students on a daily basis from texts above their independent reading level but at their listening level. From: The Components of Effective Read Alouds Adapted by Laura Beltchenko

What is a Read Aloud? n Today’s read-aloud is a vibrant, deliberate part of good teaching. It is an essential and effective strategy for delivering sophisticated literacy ideas to learners and consumers of language. Laminanck and B. Wadsoworth, Learning Under the Influence of Language and Literature.

The Importance of a Read Aloud We can enhance children’s language, vocabulary, comprehension, and cognitive development through the process of a teacher reading text aloud to students. As a result, this gives students exposure to rich vocabulary and concepts that they may not be able to read and comprehend independently.

Why Read Aloud? n Increases vocabulary n Scaffolds comprehension n Provides knowledge of the world (content) n Develops speaking and listening skills n Models reading fluency– Students can “See it in action!” n Encourages a love of reading!

Why Are We Not Seeing Results With Traditional Read Alouds? n Teacher reads just once n Students sit and JUST listen n Time filler at the end of the day n No connection to classroom learning

Rich Read Alouds n Are purposeful n Connect and integrate across disciplines n Maintain a balance between informational and literary text n Actively involve students in the learning

Choosing a Text • Layers of meaning • Purpose • Concept complexity • Vocabulary • Sentence length and structure • Figurative language • Regional/historical usage (dialects) • Text features • Genre • Organization Meaning Structure Language Knowledge • Background • Experiences From Student Achievement Partners

I’ve Chosen My Text, Now What? n Pre-read and re-read the text n Anticipate where background knowledge needs to be built n Identify the strategy and/or process at work in the text n Identify vocabulary to pre-teach or teach within context to model vocabulary strategies n Highlight places to refer back to for talking points

The research says… n Most vocabulary is learned indirectly through listening and reading. n In K-2 most words are learned through listening and generally not what they read themselves. n After grade 2, most vocabulary is gained through reading. n To grow vocabulary, students must be able to read complex text. (Standard 10)

The research says… n The more words you know the more you learn (Biemiller 2010, Stanovich 1986) n Reading or listening to a series of text on the same topic can yield as much as four times the vocabulary growth (Landauer and Dumais 1997) n 100 years of research connects vocabulary and comprehension (Whipple, 1925, NAEP 2012)

Teacher Read Alouds n “Reading aloud to students should include think-aloud or interactive elements and focus intentionally on the meaning “within the text”, “about the text” and “beyond the text”. ( Fountas and Pinnell, 2006)