1. How Student Talk Can Impact Cognition, Engagement and Achievement
The Power of Speech
How Student Talk Can Impact Cognition, Engagement and Achievement
Elizabeth Hale
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Title 1 National Conference
Philadelphia, PA
February 9, 2018

2. Student Talk Talk as a Vehicle for Learning
Cognitive and Affective Benefits
Pair and Small Groups
Using Talk to Support Independent Comprehension of Informational Text

3. Cognitive Benefits of Student Talk
1. Pause from Incoming Information
Talking gives students a chance to process and synthesize information learned (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007)
2. Active Processing of Ideas
Production of speech is cognitively more demanding, and so talking about one’s ideas, as opposed to just thinking or listening, can result in deeper processing of information. (Cazden, 2001, Carota, 2009; Murphy et al. 2009).

4. Affective Benefits of Student Talk
3. Social Interaction
Engaged reading and optimal learning occur when social interaction is part of the meaning-making process (Gambrell, Mazzonni & Almasi, 2002; Gee, 2001; Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000; Vygotsky, 1987)
4. Authentic Purpose
Authentic purpose and peer-driven accountability can heighten students’ attention to text (Blanton, Wood & Moorman, 1990; Hale, 2014).

5. Inequities of Classroom Talk
Students in high-poverty schools tend to:
Have more teacher-directed discourse (Diamond, 2007)
Have more students with deficits in expressive vocabulary and English language (Chall & Jacobs, 1983; Hart & Risley, 1995; Snow 1999)
Adopt highly structured or scripted reading programs (Fang, Fu,& Lamme, 2004)

6. Strategies for Including Purposeful Talk
Turn and Talk
Small groups for Discussion
Discussion roles
Teaching the language of talk
Specific “Talk Tasks”
Project-based learning
Independent Writing as preparation for Purposeful Talk

9. Informational versus Narrative Text
More lexically dense: content-specific vocabulary and academic language (Gardner, 2004; Hirsh, 2003)
A less explicit story arc (Best et al., 2008; Kucan & Beck, 1996)
Greater demands on working memory and background knowledge (Snow, 2002)

10. Preparation for Middle School
By 6th grade, 75% of texts that students read will be nonnarrative (Moss, 2015)

11. Expert Team Reading Student-run practice of desired reading behaviors
Heightened attention to text during independent reading

12. Expert Team Reading · Record book information
· What do you already know?
· Word quiz
· Read and Share*
· Write in reader’s notebooks
* Repeat this step until you finish or until it’s time to write

13. Expert Team Reading Record Book Information Title of Book Life Cycles
Solar
System
American
History
Other Countries
Weather
Environment
Biography
Weather

14. SHARE ONE THING Cognitive Benefits Independent reading Independent
Talk about it
Talk about it

15. When students experience engaged reading, they are more likely to integrate and internalize the value of reading (Gambrell, 1996; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Wigfield & Guthrie, 2000).

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