This past week was the first time I did a think aloud with a student in my 2nd grade practicum class and I was a little nervous at first, but it turned out pretty well. The student I worked with read the short story "Annie's Pet," by Barbara Brenner (http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/annies-pet#cart/cleanup). It's a cute little story about a girl who is given $5 for her birthday and she decides she wants to buy a pet. As the story progresses, Annie starts purchasing items with the $5 that she has, while also visiting different places to look for the perfect pet. The book is pretty short, I would say about 25-30 pages, so I was worried that my student (let's called her Mazie) wouldn't be able to get the chance to give a lot of input for the think aloud, but we made it work.
Like I said, I've never really done a think aloud with a student before, even though pretty much all of my literacy courses have discussed the benefits of think alouds and how to do it with a class. Because I didn't want to overwhelm Mazie with everything that could go into a think aloud, I just had her focus on predicting and character thoughts/emotions. I obviously wanted to model a little before I made her do it herself, so I read the first couple of pages and made some predicts out loud as to what animal I thought Annie was going to buy. She was at a zoo and was told by her father that she shouldn't get too big of an animal because it wouldn't be able to fit in the house, her mother told her not to get too small of an animal, and her brother told her not to get to wild of an animal and the illustrations showed a lion roaring. I thought out loud to myself animals that weren't too big, too small, and weren't super wild, and I came up with a monkey. I haven't personally done many think alouds with myself, so my modeling felt slightly forced, but I feel like if I did it more often I would just get used to pausing and talking about what I read. I was worried my modeling wasn't good enough, so I decided to do a little guided practice with Mazie to see what she understood about what to do for a think aloud.
After my attempt at modeling, we did a guided think aloud. The scene was Annie walking around looking for a pet and she comes across a girl with a bird, which gives Annie an idea. I asked Mazie what she thought Annie's idea was. She sat there for a few seconds, then she said that she thought Annie was going to buy a bird. As we read on, it turns out Annie didn't buy a bird because they bird she wanted already had an owner. At this point, I'm not sure if Mazie completely understands what a think aloud is, but I proceed to let her attempt it by herself. I remind her to make predictions during the rest of the story and I let her go.
The independent think aloud went very well and Mazie made predictions before I even realized what Annie was doing. Mazie also made a few comments that made me realize that she was following the story with great detail. Annie bought items throughout the book, which were a ball, collar, bowl and leash, and an ice cream cone. Each in that order and all being a total of $5. After Annie bought the ball and collar, Mazie made the prediction that Annie was buying a dog, where as I was thinking she was buying items to donate to the zoo. When Annie used her last dollar, Mazie shouted out that she was out of money and was wondering how she was going to afford buying the dog! I was curious if she would realize Annie was now out of money and she definitely did. I was surprised she was that shocked that Annie no longer had enough money to afford a pet. It was precious and made my day. Anyways, Mazie also made a comment about maybe the dogs were free. She was kind of right! The dogs Annie originally saw were at a pet store, but later Annie stumbled across an animal shelter and was able to adopt a dog for free.
I ended up enjoying the think aloud more than expected! I thought it might interrupt the flow of reading the book, but I think it made everything more clear for Mazie. By thinking out loud, she was able to verbally address questions and make predictions, and I was able to see what she was thinking. I would definitely love to do this with a small group and even large group. I was a little skeptical at first, but being able to actually doing it with a student helped me see the benefits of think alouds and how it doesn't really affect the flow of the story like I thought it would.
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