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

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

4. 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

5. What is a Read Aloud?
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.

6. 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.
Some students come to school with vocabulary gaps – studies show the effects that the gaps have on later reading development.
Read to learn- connect to content – listening comprehension develops first and is a precursor to independent reading comprehension. Even is a student can not read on their own, they need to learn it (knowledge) and are able to comprehend.

7. Why Read Aloud? Increases vocabulary Scaffolds comprehension
Provides knowledge of the world (content)
Develops speaking and listening skills
Models reading fluency– Students can “See it in action!”
Encourages a love of reading!
Levels the playing field – shows students that they can learn from reading-helps them make connections and build background knowledge for later.
Answering/asking questions – listening to complex text
See foundational skills in action
Students follow along and read along in their head- models expression and accuracy
Students of all ages love to be read to – instill that love and be a model of a reader – a positive reading experience

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

9. Rich Read Alouds Are purposeful
Connect and integrate across disciplines
Maintain a balance between informational and literary text
Actively involve students in the learning
The texts were chosen and planned carefully and purposefully – not just chosen on a whim
Complex texts that offer students more and more with every reading
Build background knowledge around a concept/topic – can level the playing field of background knowledge for literacy and content areas
Helps us meet the 50/50 requirement of the CCSS
Sporadic, unrelated readings and activities do not help young students build knowledge. Coherent texts that are connected to other parts of their day will deepen their level of understanding and learning.
Should be texts that they can not read on their own – most complex text can not be read by a student on their own – still offers learning, skills, and knowledge that all students need to be exposed to and learning.
Students still listen to the story but are part of the learning by asking/answering questions, speaking/listening, writing tasks/activities.

10. Choosing a Text Meaning Structure Knowledge Language Layers of meaning
Purpose
Concept complexity
Text features
Genre
Organization
From Student Achievement Partners…
A way to think about and organize the elements that need you take into consideration as you are choosing texts for your text set.
Quantitative, qualitative (is it appropriate?), reader & task
Vocabulary
Sentence length and structure
Figurative language
Regional/historical usage (dialects)
Background
Experiences
From Student Achievement Partners

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

12. The research says…
Most vocabulary is learned indirectly through listening and reading.
In K-2 most words are learned through listening and generally not what they read themselves.
After grade 2, most vocabulary is gained through reading.
To grow vocabulary, students must be able to read complex text. (Standard 10)
Cannot learn words from context if students do not know most of the words in context or are not familiar with content
Grade 2 and above students not on grade level will exposed to complex text and vocabulary
If a child is reading below grade level, he or she is not exposed to complex vocabulary or even complex sentences. However, if the teacher is using a read aloud above grade level the child has the benefit of being exposed to complex text, sentences and vocabulary.
If guided reading is the only reading that the student is being exposed to, their vocabulary will never grow because they are stuck in one level of text.

13. The research says…
The more words you know the more you learn (Biemiller 2010, Stanovich 1986)
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)
100 years of research connects vocabulary and comprehension (Whipple, 1925, NAEP 2012)
Not only are you building vocabulary with a read aloud but you are building background knowledge which assists with comprehension.
Vocabulary assessed in grade 1 predicts 30% of grade 11 comprehension –Cunningham and Stanovich, 1997
Vocabulary is a feature of complex text that likely causes the greatest difficulty

14. Teacher Read Alouds
“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)