Question+the+Author+and+Text+Talk

Question the Author, Text Talk

When we talk about addressing the new CCSS, these two strategies give students ways to ask questions will help them increase comprehension, think deeper about the text, ask questions when they read, find textual evidence and support their interpretations with information from the story.

What is Question the Author? Check out this Link from Reading Rockets. [|Question the Author]

Also this one from Read, Write, Think! [|Question the Author]

What is Text Talk? Text Talk is an approach to read alouds that is designed to enhance young children’s ability to construct meaning from decontextualized language. (Beck & McKeown, 2001; Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). . These lessons provide educators with a resource to accomplish the complex and demanding task of developing children’s literacy using read-alouds. The ultimate goal of a Text Talk lesson is twofold: 1.) Getting children to talk about the text, considering ideas using decontextualized language to improve comprehension, and 2.) the acquisition of vocabulary. In order to increase comprehension, teachers are reading while adding interspersed discussion to focus, monitor, and scaffold learning; helping the children to respond to the text rather than the illustrations. Discussions are based on the actual text instead of permitting students’ responses to rely strictly on their background knowledge.

Next time you do a Read Aloud, try to hold back on showing students the pictures! It is a change in thinking, but can often increase comprehension and help the students develop their own understanding of a story by listening to the vocabulary, not depending on the pictures they see. This shouldn't take place everytime you read a story out loud, but supplement this strategy with your read alouds and think alouds and see what you think! Great questions to ask during a text talk lesson: What's happening here? What's going on now? What do you think might happen next? Why do you think that?