How can I Integrate “Think Alouds” into my Lesson Plans?

 “Think alouds” strategy encourages students to verbalize their thoughts while studying. This is to create awareness of their thinking process and in doing so, learn to monitor and control the same. Teachers can also use the think aloud strategy to model and demonstrate the various strategies and problem solving techniques that assist in learning.

Using think alouds, students can improve their reading skills, comprehension, attain clarity, access prior knowledge or link them to the presenting information, predict outcomes and aid in visualization.

Teaching the strategy

Modeling the strategy is to voice out your inner dialogue of learning. Demonstrate this while reading a lesson. At various intervals during the lesson (use of a new term, unusual sentence structuring, visualizing etc.), use a question answering dialogue to stimulate thinking and reasoning. To help you get started, use the 5 W questions.  This makes it easier for students to follow the process of thinking aloud. You can also use a video recording of your think aloud to demonstrate the strategy.

Next, explain the process. Point out the importance of voicing our thoughts and draw their attention to the different learning strategies demonstrated, manner of organizing, visualizing and summarizing information. Now, allow your students to try out the strategy while supervising. Write down some questions related to the content on the blackboard. As a student reads the content aloud, use the questions to provoke thinking aloud.

Students can be encouraged to practice the strategy using the following methods.

Think aloud index cards: Prepare an index card with questions that stimulate thinking. These can help students get started on using the strategy. With practice students can be encouraged to develop their own questions to stimulate thinking aloud.

Reciprocal think alouds: Students are paired together for this activity. They are instructed to go over their learning material and record their thought process in a learning log. One student is instructed to think aloud, while the other writes down his thoughts on the subject. The roles are then switched. Once both the students think aloud, they are asked to go through their written notes and reflect on their thinking process. They can maintain a learning log, in which they write down their similar thoughts, points of differences etc.

Think aloud assessments: Using open ended questions that facilitate and encourage the students to think aloud, you can observe the different strategies used by the student. This enables you to understand the student’s needs and understanding of the topic and to provide the required assistance.

Reflective journals: As they think aloud, students can also write down their thoughts. They can doodle, scribble or use creative cartoon images to note down their process of learning. Students can refer these journals to assist in their learning, and also as a reference to check their progress in meta-cognition and use of different learning strategies.

Discuss here: What are some creative ways in which you have introduced reflective journals in the classroom?

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