Reading aloud as a literacy learning strategy

John Munro

Thinking about reading aloud

• What types of reading aloud do you have students do?

• How often do you ask students to read aloud?• When do you ask them to read aloud?• What attitudes do they have to reading aloud?• What do you do to help students to read aloud?

Why is Reading Aloud Important?

• When you read individual words aloud you convert a letter cluster (or orthographic) to sound (or phonological) knowledge.

• When you say aloud a sentence, you link a set of separate ideas into a relationship.

Why is reading aloud important?

Saying the ideas aloud helps you to link

• the ideas in your mind, link the new concepts and talk about them,

• think about and analyse what you said using your oral language knowledge and to

• remember the relationship; retain sentences in short term memory.

The difference between reading silently and reading aloud

When you read aloud the process of actually saying aloud the string of words sets up an ‘articulatory loop’ that builds links in the reader’s mind.

This feedback loop (hearing what is said) builds further learning by helping students link ideas.

How does reading aloud help readers ?

Reading aloud helps readers to

• convert a sequence of letter strings into a relationship of words

• remember what they had read, retain ideas in short term memory

• display their knowledge.

How reading aloud helps readers to improve their reading ?

It helps readers

• see reading as a “sandpit” in which they can experiment with actions to achieve a goal.

• to think about what they read, learn and practise a range of reading actions or strategies, for example, to convert a text into images or actions

• learn to convert letter strings to sounds, chunk unfamiliar words and say words “automatically” .

• learn and use new sentence templates

How does reading aloud help teachers ?

• It gives teachers ‘a window’ on what readers do while they read. They can see how the reader goes about acting as a reader or ‘comprehending’.

• Teachers can use students’ reading aloud to get an

insight into student cognitive processes.

• Hearing other students say the words (teacher can hear and address misunderstanding).

Teacher beliefs about reading aloud

• avoid it because students can’t do it.

• it was a bad idea.

How do your students score with reading aloud ?

When reading aloud, how often do students Never Always

•read few words automatically and need to work out how to say them ?

•read words incorrectly ?

•hesitate and take longer to say written words ?

•have difficulty using what they know about words to read unfamiliar words ?

•use letter by letter reading strategies ?

•show poor use of punctuation; show 'run on reading', inaccurate intonation?

•say, omit or add words that don't fit with the grammar of the written sentence ?

How do your students score with reading aloud ?

When reading aloud, how often do students Never Always

•say words that don't fit with the meaning of sentence, substitute words that clash in meaning but don't recognise clash ?

•not know when to re-read ?

•neglect to self correct ?

•use poor intonation and poor fluency; they read too fast or too slowly, stop inappropriately, read word by word, don’t show natural language fluency ?

•say words that don't fit with context or topic of the text ?

•not use context to give meanings of novel terms ?

How do your students score with reading aloud ?

When reading aloud, how often do students Never Always

•have difficulty deciding when to re-read because grammar or meaning is disrupted in sentences read ?

•have difficulty monitoring reading to ensure comprehension, re-reading miscues inconsistent with theme ?

•seem to feel helpless as readers ?

•have low expectations, low efficacy and believe that success is beyond their control ?

What reading aloud activities could you use?

Different types of reading aloud for different purposes:• Interactive reading aloud to teach particular reading strategies.• Dramatic reading to teach how to vary intonation, pause, tonal

and expression patterns.• Scaffolded reading with a better reader, paired or shared reading

with a peer to teach reading actions.• Solo reading, reading aloud to self or on tape to teach fluency.• Choral reading (chorus), small group or whole class to teach

fluency.• Shared reading, read plays, novels, poems etc with other readers.• Repeated or multiple readings of the same text to teach fluency.

How do you build reading aloud into your teaching ?

Three phases when students read aloud

at the GKR phase while reading phase

post reading review phase

getting students’ knowledge ready for reading about the topic and developing a reading plan

readers process the text and self-monitor

Build a classroom climate that supports reading aloud.

• Discuss with students why reading aloud is important

• Model oral reading strategies (pause, punctuation, expression, re-read and self-correct)

• Reassure the students that they do not have to read word perfect; Reading aloud not about word-perfect, errorless reading but discovering what the writer wants to tell them.

• Relax the reader before reading.

Build a classroom climate that supports reading aloud.

• Encourage risk taking and experimenting with praise

• GKR for reading aloud: show pictures and discuss

• Prepare for success: encourage private practice

• Praise the reader • Check for understanding; pause and ask “What question has

been answered?” (use 5Ws and How), use visual imagery techniques (“So what would that look like?’), ask quiz questions at the end of each paragraph.

Build a classroom climate that supports reading aloud

• Select key words –ask others to paraphrase the meanings

• Use different group sizes, whole class, small groups, one to one

• Use paired activities, for example, one student reads a sentence, their peer next to them paraphrases it.

• Encourage students to read aloud often.

To prepare /select texts for reading aloud

• Choose appropriate text; texts at the reader’s instructional or independent reading levels; that is, they can read at least 90 % of the words accurately

• Check readability of texts; readability measures such as Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level

• Plan to have individual students read aloud in small bursts

initially; each reader reads 1 or 2 sentences.

GKR for reading aloud

The teacher can ask students to

• say in sentences what the text might say (practise linking ideas in sentences)

• suggest words that might be in text and suggest their spelling

• read words that they know that are similar to words in the text

• practise reading key words that appear in the text• say what they will do to prepare to read aloud.

GKR for reading aloud

The teacher can ask students to

• say what they will do as they read aloud; plan how they will read

• discuss how reading aloud can help them.• scan the text before beginning to read it and underline or

highlight key words, sentences or ideas, say where they might pause, how they will use punctuation

• prepare to read aloud particular chunks; give them time to do this

• relax the reader.

What might students do while reading aloud

Reading actions to encourage while reading aloud. The reader can:

• point to words while reading, run finger along the text, use fingers to segment words or guide reading

• re-read sentences or sections to improve fluency or that

didn’t make sense, difficult to understand.

• self-correct errors by re-reading, self-correct pronunciation.

What might students do while reading aloud

The reader can:• pause to comprehend at the end of each sentence; the

reader can paraphrase, ask questions, consolidate (“so what that says, is…”), predict what’s going to happen next

• read at their pace and vary the pace to match difficulty of material

• experiment while reading – predict what the text might be about , guess unfamiliar words

• re-read to understand main idea.

After reading aloud, post reading review

• Respond emotionally, link positive feelings or attitudes with reading aloud.

• Review their reading plan. Think about the actions that helped you understand. What do you do to read aloud well ?

• Discuss the purpose of the text• Convert read information into personal knowledge• Practise writing read text: dictation and running dictation

• Learning to say words for homework.

Self talk to automatize reading aloud

• What can I do before I start reading? • What is the purpose? Why am I reading this? • What do I know about this topic?• What will I do when I come to a word I don’t understand?• What will I do when I don’t understand an idea?• What should I be doing when someone is reading? • What should I be able to do after I have read the text?• Physically, what do I do when I read?

• What will I look for as I read?

How dictation helps students

It helps readers to • learn sound patterns of words, phrases and sentences• focus on what is said, improve listening• automatize writing• summarize key information• learn to use the structure of sentences and punctuation.• understand their own sentences and paragraphs.• automatize the structure of a sentence, reinforcing

templates in their mind.