Explaining Their Thinking
Overview
When students explain their thinking process aloud, they recognize the strategies they use and solidify their understanding. Think-alouds, or self-explanations, require students to reflect on the details of text, the strategies needed to understand it, and the reasons behind those decisions. They can also be used as formative assessment to monitor students' understanding and address any misconceptions. 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 teacher uses a think-aloud to review and model reading strategies, such as activating Background Knowledge and using Genre Knowledge to anticipate what the text will be about, as well as guide students in applying the strategies. While this teacher is working with older students, her model can be applied to students of any age.
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.
Starting at 1:26, learn how digital portfolios like Seesaw allow students to take photos of their work and voice record their thinking.
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
Creating and acting out texts or original narratives can enhance literacy for young learners, solidifying their comprehension and building Narrative Skills.
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
When young children draw and are encouraged to explain their drawings, they are sharpening the cognitive and motor skills involved in conventional writing.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Free choice supports learner interests and allows more complex social interactions to develop.
Games help students visualize new information and immerse themselves in the learning process.
Imagining allows students to step back from a problem or task and think about it from multiple angles.
Reading aloud allows students to hear and practice reading and fluency skills.
Playful activities, including pretending, games, and other child-led activities, can support the development of learners' Metacognition and also inspire their narratives and writing.
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.
