Read-Aloud Engagement Strategies

Monday I read-aloud an article titled "The Upside of Dyslexia." For my amazing EL babies, it was a little hard to fully comprehend, and it didn't use the most kid-friendly language. (Though, it was an awesome article and I think 100% worth using!)

Side note: It's okay for read-alouds to be above students' heads (to a degree).  During read-alouds, teachers do most of the work with modeling, scaffolding, anchor charts, think-alouds, and what not. This is their chance to engage in above-level texts with teacher support. Levels of support for reading from most teacher support, to least teacher support:

• Read-alouds (can be above their grade level, involves most teacher support)
• Shared Reading (should hit middle range of students, on grade level)
• Guided Reading (leveled grouping, students are grouped according to reading level)
• Independent Reading (students read on their levels, with little to no teacher support)

Okay back to the point...As I taught on Monday, I front-loaded some vocabulary, discussed the celebrities that would be in the article, and gave them insight into what we would be reading about.  I think overall my students were actually very interested in learning about dyslexia (specifically because it connected with Trisha from Thank You, Mr. Falker and because we read about celebrities. HOWEVER, I still felt like engagement could have been better.  So, I reflected:

Here's what I think I did well (feel free to agree/disagree if you observed me):

• Reading with expression: I think I mostly made the non-fiction text seem exciting 
• Students actually exhibit a lot of curiosity when it comes to non-fiction, because they are so curious. I try to model curiosity and how learning from non-fiction is an adventure so that I can affirm/encourage the curiosity that seems to come more natural to children!  Sometimes, schools and our education system teach children to unlearn curiosity...UGH! That's awful!
• Building background knowledge
• Scaffolding with questions and through the use of an anchor chart/table (organized information in a student-friendly way)

Here's what I want to improve:

• Consistent student engagement
• Checks for understanding (I think I should have done a few more comprehension checks throughout the read-aloud and at the end)

So to make my reflecting more meaningful, here are some ideas/strategies I brainstormed that I may use during future read-alouds to increase engagement and accountability:

1. post-it notes: give my students more responsibility by having them listen for an answer, record feelings, or something similar while I read.  So for this particular text, one example: I could have had students write down all of the struggles that the celebrities had during their childhood OR one interesting thing they learned
2. give students a graphic organizer (GO) while I read aloud for them to fill out; for this article I could have given students a "t-chart" GO, on one side they could write "struggles that people with dyslexia have" and on the other side "strengths"
3. more partner share (implementing more comprehension questions/opportunities for students to make connections and share)

Hope that some of my reflections and these ideas are helpful!

Here are some more generic but SUPER HELPFUL ideas on engagement in the classroom by an actual research-based expert:

Marzano's 5 Ways to Get and Keep Your Students Attention