Interactive Read Aloud Time

My district started "Coaching Cycles" for teachers in the area of Literacy. Each building has a Literacy Coach to work on a specific teaching skill during grade level "cycles". Last year we focused on Interactive Read Alouds. This has been otherwise known as Accountable Talk. Students spend time during a read aloud thinking about and discussing their thoughts, opinions, etc. Teachers plan stopping points with questions or thoughts. These questions should be open ended questions for the students to ponder and/or debate.

Let's be real. Reading through a children's text, planning stopping points, having a specific focus, designing turn and talk opportunities, planning your think aloud moments, writing questions and ideas on post-its, thinking about a good stop and jot place, and possibilities of stop and act sounds like a ton of work...which it totally is. (Many teacher reactions included: "you want us to do WHAT in addition to everything else?!") However, in my experience, payoff has been big. Students are really thinking critically about characters, plot, and literature in general. They are making connections to their own lives and viewing different perspectives. When partners disagree, they try to consider both possibilities. Sometimes they try to convince each other with further debate. First grade. For real.

Coming up with great titles for Interactive Read Alouds has been tricky. Fiction has been easier to begin with. Many of these titles can be used in various grade levels depending on your focus. Here are a few that were great to get me started:

 

Of course, non-fiction is a huge focus in the Common Core State Standards. It has been tricky for me to plan for these types of read alouds. The video below was super helpful for me!

Accountable Talk is modeled through Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project videos. They are great to give you and idea of what it can look like.

Has your district focused on this?? What titles are your favorites?