A Combined Read-Aloud Think-Aloud Strategy Improves .
TWO-YEAR COMMUNITYA Combined Read-AloudThink-Aloud Strategy ImprovesStudent Learning Experiences inCollege-Level Biology CoursesBy Oliver R. W. Pergams, Charmaine E. Jake-Matthews, and Liza M. MohantyReading aloud (RA) is a learning strategy commonly used to help youngerstudents develop language comprehension skills and in adult literacy andlanguage courses to help students master the pronunciation of words,grammar, and intonation. However, we know of no studies to date thatinvestigate the possible benefits of RA at the college or university level.We propose that “reading aloud” (RA) immediately followed by “thinkingaloud” (TA) during class can help college students enhance their readingabilities and cultivate their analytical thinking skills. This study exploresthe impact of a “read aloud–think aloud” (RA-TA) strategy in collegelevel biology courses. Students in 3 sections of 2 courses were asked abouttheir experiences with RA via an end-of-semester survey. When pooled (N 34 students), responses to all 5 survey questions significantly supportedRA-TA. The responses to 4 survey questions very significantly supportedthe use of RA-TA: Students read the text more, understood it better, foundthe instructor’s help useful, and in general learned to read difficult textswith greater comprehension. Results suggest that a RA-TA approach hasthe potential to greatly enhance student learning at the college level andprovides a promising area for future research.Community college studentstypically have diverse educational backgrounds andlife circumstances (Cohen,Brawer, & Kisker, 2014). Many students are returning to the classroomafter being away for many years, orare switching careers or disciplines.Others have just completed highschool and are not experienced withstudying independently. In a diverseclassroom, helping every studentmeet learning goals can be a challenge, particularly in content-heavysubjects such as biology. An addedobstacle for students learning about10Journal of College Science Teachinga science such as biology is the vastnumber of new vocabulary wordsthat they must integrate in a shortperiod (Snow, 2010). Students oftenface the same challenges in a biology course as they would in a foreignlanguage course. At the same time,learning new words is easier whenstudents are familiar with their context. These aspects of learning canbe daunting. To serve these needs,a teaching approach that helps themto learn both vocabulary and courseconcepts is needed. To identify suchan approach, we return to the foundations of educational pedagogy.Of the many theories in the fieldof education, Lev Vygotsky’s workseems applicable. Vygotsky emphasizes the roles of social interactionand cultural context in learning. Thelearner best acquires knowledge andskills through social connection andinteraction with others (Gredler,2009). Many educational conceptsand practices are in turn based onthis premise, including the zone ofproximal development (ZPD) andscaffolding.The ZPD is defined as what thelearner cannot do alone, but can dowith support and assistance from amore experienced and knowledgeable individual (Rogoff, 1990). Scaffolding is the temporary support thatthe more knowledgeable individualprovides to help the learner movethrough the ZPD to higher levels ofskill and knowledge. As the learnerprogresses, so does the nature of thesupport provided. Ideally, descaffolding will eventually occur and thelearner will have acquired knowledgeand skills that can be demonstratedindependently (Collins, Brown, &Newman, 1989).Lin et al. (2012) conducted acontent analysis of 43 science education scaffolding articles, yieldingthree conclusions. First, the aims ofscaffolding in science education arethe development of conceptual un-
derstanding, procedural and strategicskills, and metacognition. Second,many representations of scaffoldingare present in the science educationliterature. These can be categorizedas visual representation, social interactions, and written prompts. Third,Lin et al. found consensus that descaffolding is necessary, but found littledocumentation of its occurrence.Interactive reading aloud (RA)is a teaching tool that uses scaffolding. RA consists of several steps(previewing a storybook, scaffoldingon prior knowledge, emphasizingstory elements, answering purposeful questions, and summarizing whatwas learned). Two forms of RA havebeen used in educational practices:reading to students and round-robinreading (Brabham & Lynch-Brown,2002; Trelease, 2013). In the former,the teacher reads the book aloud tothe students, modeling appropriatefluency and intonation, while studentsexperience the storybook by answering and asking questions as the bookis read to them (Trelease, 2013).Round-robin reading is similar, butinstead the students take turns reading passages. RA in various formswas observed to increase studentmastery of new vocabulary words atboth the preschool (Leung, 2008) andelementary school (Brabham & LynchBrown, 2002) levels. The authors thusfelt it worth exploring the potential ofRA as a learning tool for students atadvanced educational levels.The teacher may also demonstrate“thinking aloud” (TA) at the sametime, by describing his or her thoughtprocesses while reading. This models for the students how to searchfor meaning in what they read. RAto younger students has been demonstrated to broaden vocabularies,develop concept of story structure,strengthen understanding of the con-nection between spoken and printedelements, sharpen critical thinkingskills, increase confidence with thereading process, model fluency, andencourage students to read on theirown (Rog, 2001).RA is less commonly used in theupper elementary, middle, and highschool levels, and there are relativelyfew studies of its effectiveness inhelping older students learn (Trelease,2013). We know of no prior studies ofRA at the postsecondary level. The decrease in the use of RA in higher gradelevels may occur for many reasons.Some argue that RA is unengaging forthe listener. Some studies suggest thatit is anxiety producing for the readerand encumbers working memory fordecoding, recoding, and articulation,thus preventing the student from fullycomprehending what she or he is reading. Furthermore, RA may arguably bea linear process that does not facilitatecomprehension (Klapper, 1992). Somefeel that the slowed reading rate during RA results in the dissection of thelanguage and an overall loss of message of the writing (Eskey & Grabe,1988; Grabe & Stoller, 2011). Kelly(1995) noted that many teachers persistin using RA despite these argumentsand the lack of research to support theeffectiveness of RA.However, more recent researchprovides support for RA in the classroom, especially when it is used in anactive, rather than passive, manner.Dreher (2003) reported that RA helpsengage students in lessons, increasestheir confidence, and improves theirability to read difficult texts. Specifically, these benefits occur when allstudents are involved in the readingprocess and subsequent discussion.Hale et al. (2007) found that RAenhances reading comprehension inelementary and high school students.Furthermore, Duncan (2015) reportedthat adults continue to engage in RA,apply it to a variety of reading materials, and value it for many reasons.These findings are particularly salientas they support the use of RA witholder students and support the use ofRA in other than storybooks.The use of TA in conjunctionwith RA (RA-TA) might serve as apowerful learning tool even at moreadvanced levels of study. From theauthors’ experience, this approachseems to work best in smaller classes,preferably with fewer than 15 students.RA-TA provides a framework forstrengthening students’ reading skillsin an interactive way. The concernof students becoming bored is offsetby a TA session after the reading ofa paragraph. During the TA session,the instructor would pose questionsand provide explanation as needed.All students would be encouraged tocontribute to the discussion by paraphrasing, summarizing, and asking andanswering questions. RA alone may bea more passive activity, but in concertwith TA it can engage all students inthe classroom, while providing thescaffolding necessary to develop abilities central to both reading scientificliterature and performing hands-onscience. These abilities include criticalthinking, data analysis, and integrationof prior knowledge, all of which helpstudents succeed in their courses andbeyond. The authors thus felt justifiedin using class time to help studentsdevelop their reading skills.In this study, the strategy of RA inclass was implemented in three sections of two courses offered at an urbancommunity college, Olive-HarveyCollege (OHC), one of the City Colleges of Chicago (CCC). CCC is oneof the nation’s largest community colleges and the largest in Illinois, with6,000 faculty and staff and 120,000students. The PI (corresponding auVol. 47, No. 5, 201811
TWO-YEAR COMMUNITYthor Pergams) is a tenured associateprofessor at OHC, the poorest of theseven colleges (95% minority, 84%below poverty level (CCC unpublisheddata, 2016). One course was Biology119, Environmental Biology, a generaleducation course that may be taken bybiology nonmajors, although it is oftenalso taken by majors. A second coursein which this technique was appliedwas Biology 122 (Organismal Biology: Ecology, and Evolution), whichis a majors’ biology course usuallytaken by students who will transfer toa 4-year bachelor of science program.Sample course materials are includedin Appendices I–VI (available at http://www.nsta.org/college/connections.aspx).The PI had previously taught thesecourses in a traditional lecture-basedstyle, using PowerPoint slides to convey much of the information. He feltthat this “sage on the stage” approachwas not engaging students enough andnot motivating them to take ownership of their learning. The instructorasked the first group of students wherethey were facing challenges. Mostresponded that they had not read thetextbook on their own, or that theyhad attempted to read the textbook butdid not understand it. When asked toelaborate, most students cited one orboth of two reasons: (1) a lack of adequate time, or (2) they did not enjoyreading the textbook or article, oftenbecause they felt overwhelmed by it.To counter these challenges, the PIsought a different approach. Based onsuccess of RA and TA in other educational settings discussed previously,RA-TA in class seemed to be a potentially effective approach to address allthree concerns (encouraging studentsto read the material, helping studentsto understand the course concepts,and motivating students to becomestakeholders in their own learning).12Journal of College Science TeachingMethodsThe PI decided to directly addressthe students’ apprehension of reading (especially difficult textbooks)by having them take turns readingthe textbook aloud during class. Healso wanted to encourage them tothink critically and to identify theirown areas of challenge by askingquestions as they read. A combined“reading aloud–thinking aloud”(RA-TA) approach was used.Active student participation andbuy-in were gained by first explaining RA-TA and its hoped-for benefitsto them. Students then were asked tovote on a 2-week RA-TA trial period.At the end of the trial period studentsvoted again on whether to retain RATA for the rest of the semester. All students agreed to abide by the majorityopinion. In each course the majorityvoted in favor of retaining RA-TA forthe duration. No students objected,so there was no need to incentivizeparticipation by awarding points.Each student and the instructortook turns reading a paragraph outloud. Under the guidance of theinstructor, this was followed by athink-aloud during which the classtook part in the paraphrasing andanalysis of the paragraph. Studentswere asked to summarize the mainidea of the paragraph and to askquestions on anything they did notunderstand, including unfamiliar vocabulary. Accompanying figures werealso discussed. During the lesson,the instructor incorporated videos,models, ancillary texts, internet resources, etc., and paused for discussion to be sure students thoroughlyunderstood concepts before readingwould continue. RA also provided theinstructor with instant feedback onstudents’ reading ability and allowedthe instructor to model the readingprocess and to demonstrate correctpronunciation and intonation. Thegoal was to increase students’ selfconfidence in their reading ability,improve their reading comprehension,and help them develop their metacognitive abilities. This also modeled forthe students how to search for othersources of information to help thembetter understand what they had read.AnalysisThree sections of two courses wereinvolved in this project:1. Biology 122 (OrganismalBiology II) taught fall 2015 (N 8 students)2. Biology 119 (EnvironmentalBiology) taught spring 2016 (N 14 students)3. Biology 122 (OrganismalBiology II) taught fall 2016 (N 12 students)There were a total of 34 studentsin these three sections. The instructor gave the students a semester-endsurvey to fill out (see Figure 1). TheFIGURE 1End-of-semester survey.Please rate the following on a 1–5scale, with 1 strongly disagree, 2 somewhat disagree, 3 neitherdisagree nor agree, 4 somewhatagree, and 5 strongly agree.1. It made me read the text morethan I would have otherwise.2. It made me understand the textmore than I would have otherwise.3. [The instructor] elaborating on thetext was useful to me.4. In general, I learned how toread difficult texts with greatercomprehension.5. I prefer a class conducted thisway over a class with lecture andPowerPoints.
survey sheets were proctored by astudent while the instructor was outof the room. The total sample of 34students is small, but p-values takesample size into account. We usedone-sample t-tests with null hypotheses of 3 on a 5-point Likert scale(neither agree nor disagree). In otherwords, we tested whether students’responses were significantly different from neutral for each question.Because previous sections of bothcourses used different textbooks,homework, and quizzes, studentgrades in past sections of thesecourses taught by traditional lecturing could not be compared with thesethree RA-TA classes.ResultsStudents in Biology 122 (fall 2015,N 8) responded significantly andpositively to all but two questions(Table 1). One was “My own ‘translating’ of the text after someone elseread it helped me understand thetext better.” Later discussion withstudents suggested this was because“translating” started late in the class(Week 11 out of 16), and the studentsdid not have time to get used to it.In fact, it was unpopular, and the instructor discontinued it in later classes. Students also did not respondsignificantly to “I prefer a class conducted this way over a class with lecture and PowerPoints.” Subsequentstudent discussion revealed that itwas difficult for students to embracethis approach to learning because itwas novel. Traditional PowerPointbased lectures were the norm in themajority of their classes, so it is notsurprising that students were still notcompletely at ease with the RA-TAapproach by the end of the semester.Students in Biology 119 (spring2016, N 14) responded significantlyand positively to all but one question:“I prefer a class conducted this wayover a class with lecture and PowerPoints.” Student discussion suggested that the novelty of the RA-TAapproach was less important to them.Students in Biology 122 (fall 2016,N 12) responded significantly andpositively to all but one question: “Ingeneral, I learned how to read difficulttexts with greater comprehension,”The question missed significanceby a very small margin (2-tailed p .0688). When asked about theirresponse, some students shared thatthey felt they still needed the instructor’s guidance to help them fullyunderstand the readings.TABLE 1Results (2-tailed P values) of 1-sample t-tests on survey questions, using 3 on a 5-point Likert scale as a nullhypothesis.Bio 122Fall 2015Read Text MoreUnderstand Text PergamsMoreElaboratingMyHelped Reading“Translating” In GeneralPrefer Class ThisWaymean4.134.134.883.693.693.132-tailed P0.03790.0066 0.00010.18850.02800.7627(1-sample t-test w/3 as null hypothesis, N 8)Bio 119Spring 2016Read Text MoreUnderstand Text PergamsMoreElaboratingMyHelped Reading“Translating” In GeneralPrefer Class ThisWaymean4.074.294.794.213.292-tailed P0.0060.0003 0.0001 0.00010.3649(1-sample t-test w/3 as null hypothesis, N 14)Bio 122Fall 2016Read Text MoreUnderstand Text PergamsMoreElaboratingMyHelped Reading“Translating” In GeneralPrefer Class ThisWaymean4.253.834.753.753.582-tailed P0.00040.0172 0.00010.06880.0116(1-sample t-test w/3 as null hypothesis, N 12)TOTAL4.154.094.793.933.352-tailed P 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.00010.0437(1-sample t-test w/3 as null hypothesis, N 34)Vol. 47, No. 5, 201813
TWO-YEAR COMMUNITYWhen pooled (N 34), responsesto all five questions were positivelysignificant, and all but one highly so(2-tailed p .0001). The questionthat was positively significant butnot highly so was “I prefer a classconducted this way over a class withlecture and PowerPoints” (p .0437).The authors attempted to implement the RA-TA strategy in largerclasses (17, 18, 19, 29, and 32 students), but opted not to pursue it,based on an observed lack of studentengagement. In these larger classes,instructors subjectively felt it wasdifficult to get through the materialwithout substantially losing studentattention. Further research couldverify and refine this observation.When class sizes were 15, studentshad to wait too long for their turnto read again and lost focus. It wasconcluded that this RA-TA approachis most effective in smaller classeswith fewer than 15 students.ConclusionsStudies published within other contexts provide compelling evidencefor the value of RA as a learningtool. However, most of this researchfocuses on its use with younger students. By contrast, RA is used muchless often in middle school, highschool, and postsecondary education. Instructors in these settingsare increasingly facing pressure todemonstrate their effectiveness asmeasured by student performanceon tests (Serafini & Giorgis, 2003).RA may be viewed as too slow toproduce immediate results on examinations. In conversations withcolleagues, the authors heard a fewinstructors state that they did nothave time for RA. This attitude maypartly arise from the pressure felt bysome college instructors to coverextensive curricula in a short time.14Journal of College Science TeachingAnother comment that the authorsencountered was that RA is too “juvenile” or “basic” and thus is not appropriate for college.Despite these objections to RA,the use of an RA-TA approach forteaching science is supported byresearch on the value of scaffolding(Lin et al., 2012). Specifically, RA andTA include the three elements foundin scaffolding: visual representations, social interactions, and writtenprompts. Although Lin’s findings applied to grammar school students, thefindings of the current study togetherwith Duncan’s (2015) study of thevalue of RA in adults suggest that RATA is useful for adult learners as well.Significant, positive responsesfrom students to the postclass surveyindicate that the use of the RA-TAmethod enhanced their learning experiences. However, some classesdid not show a significant positive response to the process of “translating”the text. This is consistent with previous research that suggests that scaffolding methods should be tailored tothe needs of the students being taught(Lin et al., 2012). In accordance withthis need for tailored scaffolding, theauthors discontinued the process of“translating the text” when studentsexpressed that the process was unappealing and unhelpful.Another important goal of scaffolding is for students to developindependence in performing learnedskills through the process of descaffolding (C
interaction with others (Gredler, 2009). Many educational concepts and practices are in turn based on this premise, including the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and scaffolding. The ZPD is defined as what the learner cannot do alone, but can do with support and assistance from a more ex
During Lesson 5, select a few students to read the selection aloud, either individually or chorally. Be sure to provide opportunities for different students to read aloud each week. The selection chosen for Lesson 6 will be read aloud in Lesson 10; the selection chosen for Lesson 11 will be read aloud in Lesson 15.
5 Hearing books read aloud improves a child's ability to listen for periods of time and increases attention spans. 6 Reading aloud allows children to interact by interrupting and asking questions about meaning. 7 Hearing a story read aloud enables children to make connections with others'personal experiences. 8 Listening to more complex .
TOEIC SPEAKING Actual Test 1 Part 1 Tasks 1-2: Read a text aloud In this part of the test, you will read aloud the text on the screen. You will have 45 seconds to prepare. Then you will have 45 seconds to read the text aloud. Exercise 1Read a Text Aloud 1 Preparation Time 00:00:45, Response Time 00:00:45
Free Illustrated PDF Download Edition version 2014.3.31 illustrations from morguefile.com free stock photos and clipartlord.com . Contents About This Book . Please enjoy this free selection of poems from the READ-ALOUD, READ-ALONG books by Susan Call Hutchison. Like all the READ-ALOUD, READ-ALONG Books, these poems are .
through choice. Experience of positively modelled read aloud sessions, supports young readers, offers an externalised model of expressive reading, and enables them to access texts beyond their current reading ability. (OU RfP Research Summary: Reading Aloud) Furthermore, regular read aloud sessions have been found to have a profound impact on the
Muller (2015), reading aloud makes active movement: sets sounds, thought, and feeling in motion. As addition, Lane and Bright (2011) Teachers must maximize the effectiveness of their read-aloud activities. To make read aloud as effective as possible. Realizing the problem faced by the students in memorizing vocabulary, the
read-alouds make use of Flip Book images from two or more separate lessons. It is highly recommended that you preview each modified read-aloud, with the Flip Book in hand, before teaching a lesson. It is critical that you be familiar with the order of the Flip Book images for a given read-aloud, so that you are able to confidently present the read-
1 Using the Think Aloud Strategy to Launch a Discourse-Rich Mathematics Lesson 2 Introducing a Mathematical Think Aloud 3 The idea of elementary students working together on mathematical tasks is not new, 4 but recent attention to creating purposeful discourse in mathematics classrooms prompts us to 5 revisi
