Deannalyons's Blog

Beck and McKeown (2001) Assignment

February 1, 2010 at 8:25 pm (Uncategorized)

Reading aloud to children has proven to be highly effective in helping language and literacy. This article explores how the reading aloud experience can be used to enhance children’s language development. The researchers of this article explored what kind of texts and what kind of talk should be used to best benefit the child’s development, based on information gathered from kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Text Talk is an approach of helping students make observations and construct meaning of texts.

The article suggests that the most valuable aspect of Text Talk is giving the child experience with decontextualized language.  Decontextualized language encourages the child to think outside of the here and now. This method allows children to be more involved in the read aloud activity beyond simply listening to the story. The child also becomes involved in a discussion about the ideas included in the book. One of the main ways to draw students into a text talk discussion is through the use of pictures. Students are already interested in the pictures and enjoy observing and discussing the pictures and how the relate to the text. This helps in getting the students involoved in discussing the story. When talking about the story it is important the teacher encourage students to discuss what has already happened in the story, what is happening now, and to make predictions of what may happen next.  These strategies help promote critical thinking and a true understanding and comprehension of the text that has been read.

The following are the specific components in a Text Talk Lesson:

1. Selection of texts-  Select stories with event structure and complexities of events to help students build meaning, and think beyond the here and now.
2. Initial Questions- Ask question that require students to describe and explain ideas, as well as recall and retrieve words from texts. Ask questions that require more that a one word response. Make questions more open ended.
3. Follow- Up Questions-  Teachers has questions that scaffold students’ thinking by using their initial responses to form questions later on. Questions should encourage students to elaborate and develop ideas
4. Pictures- Pictures should be presented after students have heard and responded to the text. This allows the focus to be on the text, and the pictures to be used as a reinforcement of the text and the main ideas
5.  Background Knowledge- Invites students to use background knowledge to support meaning building of the text. It also allows students to relate to the text and draw conclusions based on their own experiences.
6. Vocabulary- Some sophisticated words are selected for direct attention after the story has been read and the discussion of the story is completed.