Many of you who are early-grade teachers are familiar with the practice of reading aloud and thinking aloud. However, unless you approach reading and thinking aloud with your students as you would approach watering your flowers in summer – regularly and responsively – the result will not be as spectacular as it could be. What does a spectacular reader do? When they read they want to “get it”. They know what they need to do to get it. If they don’t get it, they have good ideas for how to fix it. They engage – they ask questions, fill in the gaps, make connections, and grow all kinds of new ideas. They can do all this without the direction of their teacher.
