Explaining Their Thinking
Overview
During reading, giving students the opportunity to explain their thinking process aloud allows them to recognize the strategies they use, solidify their comprehension, and move knowledge into their Long-term Memory. This can be achieved through student think-alouds, or self-explanations, which require students to reflect on the details of text, the strategies needed to understand or write it, and build their Cognitive Flexibility as they shift between strategies and tasks. Research cautions that this strategy is most effective when students are prompted with specific protocols or questions, and that prompts should be carefully aligned with target learning outcomes so students avoid reinforcing incorrect approaches or choices.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this high school teacher asks students to think aloud in pairs to deepen their comprehension, question the text, and build Critical Literacy. With some prompting, students push their thinking and connect their reading to their broader learning.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how digital portfolios like VoiceThread allow students to record their thinking in response to images, media, or presentations.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Active Learning Strategies
For adolescent learners, the Composition process can become more robust, as learners begin to express ideas through multiple media, which includes visual, audio, and digital production.
When students express information visually, they are activating more cognitive processes while problem solving and increasing their experience with alternate texts.
When preparing for and debating with peers, students analyze, form, and express verbal arguments, fostering their critical thinking and literacy skills.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Games help students practice their literacy skills in a fun, applied context.
When students write from a non-dominant or marginalized perspective, they consider and give voice to points of view that are often missing.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question.
