Student Think Aloud –
A Window into Readers’
Thinking
Nicole Sprainger, Daniel Sandral and Kathy Ferrari
‘The goal of reading is to understand the text, and reading only occurs when it is understood’
(Gee, 1998:1)
• To gauge the depth of the student’s understanding
of the text
• To observe the student’s reading behaviours and
use of cognitive strategies
PRIM AR Y
It was questions like these that led us to investigate
how we might better gain an insight into our
readers’ thinking.
Whilst it is known skilled reading involves
accurate word recognition and fluency, effective
reading requires much more. Researchers such as
Duke and Pearson (2002) have provided evidence of
what proficient readers do before, during and after
reading. Reading is viewed as a strategic process
where proficient readers become meta-cognitively
aware and active problem solvers as they attempt
to make sense of what they are reading. Reading
requires the orchestration of many skills such
as the ability to activate prior knowledge, make
connections, question and monitor one’s own
reading throughout the reading process.
The influence of ‘proficient reader’ research has
led teachers to recognise not only that cognitive
comprehension strategies can be explicitly taught,
but also that students’ meta-cognition can be
systematically developed. In the current educational
environment of high stakes testing, attention is
focused on traditional assessment practices such
as retelling, answering questions and eliciting
vocabulary. While these tools provide some useful
information we believe they are insufficient if we
wish to truly help our students develop deeper
understanding of texts.
In order to notice and understand what students
know and can do as readers, a shift in assessment
practices is required. Teachers need feedback on
the effectiveness of comprehension instruction to
provide direction for future teaching and learning.
With this in mind we have been exploring the use of
‘think alouds’. Snowball (2005) defines think aloud
as ‘an important strategy for reading comprehension …
when readers recognise and talk out loud the process that
is occurring in their head (metacognition) as they read’.
Snowball (2005) claims think alouds improve
students’ comprehension in two instances. First,
whilst students themselves think aloud as they
read their own texts. And second, where teachers
utilise and model think alouds when reading with
students. Many teachers effectively use teacher
think alouds as a modelling strategy. Here they use
episodes such as reading aloud and shared reading
to explicitly teach cognitive reading strategies and
then encourage students to practise ‘thinking aloud’
in their own reading.
Student think alouds are an effective assessment
tool that provide a window into students’ thinking.
They provide opportunities for teachers to notice
what students know and can do by making their
reading strategies audible and visible. During a
student think aloud the student reads an unseen
text, supported by an open conversation with the
teacher. The student is encouraged to verbalise his/
her thinking as they read and interpret the text.
The role of the teacher is primarily that of observer.
Teacher prompts are generally open ended and
designed to nudge the student’s thinking e.g. What
are you feeling? What are you thinking now? Further
probing questions may also be utilised as part of the
follow up conversation once the reading is complete.
For example, What can you tell me about Smudge’s dad?
I’m wondering what you think makes someone a good
reader?
The purpose of a student think-aloud assessment
is threefold:
P RA C T IC A LLY
• How do we best assess our readers?
• Is ascertaining an accuracy and self-correction
rate, and/or asking set comprehension questions
enough? We don’t think so!
• Is there another way we can find out about
more about our readers without waiting for
NAPLAN results in Years 3 and 5 or relying on
standardised reading tests?
• How can we learn more about our students’
comprehension – their strengths and areas of
need, within the everyday classroom context?
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• To determine the extent of their metacognition,
that is, their conscious awareness of sense making
strategies and how these help them as a reader
It may also provide valuable feedback about:
• The effectiveness of reading comprehension
instruction
• Reader motivation and engagement, as well as
• How the student perceives themself as a reader
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By engaging in several student think aloud
assessment conversations over time, with a variety
of authentic texts, teachers can gain additional
feedback. Teachers may gain insights into a student’s
ability to be a flexible strategic reader, who can
vary their reading strategies to fit the text genre or
context.
The information the teacher gains from a
student think aloud is quite different from that
emerging from the analysis of traditional skillsbased assessments such as NAPLAN, cloze
passages or simple retellings. It is invaluable in
planning for ongoing teaching and learning in the
reading program. The use of student think aloud as
an assessment tool is now illustrated in the following
case studies.
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Student Think Aloud Case Study 1: Bella
Bella is a Year 6 student from a low SES,
multicultural, comprehensive primary school located
in Sydney’s inner western suburbs. Bella’s teachers
had been recently introduced think aloud during
shared reading. Bella was asked to ‘think aloud’
as she read an unseen text, The Tunnel by Anthony
Browne. Bella’s responses (some which are provided
below) provided her teacher with feedback about
Bella as a reader, including her ability to make
sense of the text and insights into her development
of metacognitive reading behaviours. These rich
data also provided evidence of the effectiveness
of the instructional reading program thus far. The
full video of Bella’s Think Aloud can be found at
http://au.myspace.com/video/557108920/thinkaloud/107174588
Bella’s comprehension of text
Listening to Bella’s think aloud and subsequent
conversation reveals she clearly comprehended
the text, and made use of some of the cognitive
strategies that support comprehension:
• Bella used the pictures to help shape her
predictions and understand the characters more
deeply – ‘she likes fairytales like Little Red Riding
Hood, Sleeping Beauty and all different characters and
he [the brother] looks a bit like Fox (from Margaret
Wild’s book of the same name); she just can’t let go of
her books; I noticed as he changed, the background got
brighter…it’s not dark and weary anymore’
• She made lots of connections to characters from
other books and texts from similar genres – ‘she
looks a little bit like Red Riding Hood; when it said
it was a dark and scary night I thought a bit of Snow
White and how she’s running away…and the woods
look a bit scary, plus the axe looks like the hunter – how
he’s trying to get her heart’
• While reading she uses her prior knowledge of
Greek mythology to help her relate to characters
– ‘I was going to relate this to a Greek story – how she
has the snakes coming out of her head – like whenever
someone looks at her, she turns them into stone’
• She could draw out some understanding of theme
– ‘[Anthony Browne’s message is] that differences don’t
really matter but at the end differences can be really
good and make good friendships’
These observations demonstrate the ability to
make connections between characters in an unseen
text and those she has read about before. Her
identification of the story’s theme also demonstrates
the ability to connect to her own experiences.
However, missing in her think aloud was an
understanding of the ways that authors position
readers. Bella’s think aloud and the subsequent
conversation points to the need for her to learn more
about how authors craft a text. Bella would benefit
from learning experiences focused on positioning,
for example, the ways that authors deliberately tell
the story from a particular character’s point of view
in order to evoke empathy for a character. Bella was
unable to do this.
Bella’s metacognition – comments on her
own behaviours as a reader
In terms of Bella’s awareness of herself as a reader,
she reports as sometimes being a good reader.
She is aware of some of the cognitive strategies
that she uses – ‘I was able to connect and visualize
these stories and connect this story to other stories…I
was also thinking about what would happen next and
saying my opinion of this book’. These comments
demonstrate some initial development of Bella’s
meta-comprehension. This could be considered a
consequence of Bella’s teacher using think aloud
during recent shared reading experiences.
Student Think Aloud Case Study 2: Emily
During the reading and in the post reading
discussion, Emily demonstrated a clear
understanding of the text.
• She confidently discussed relationships between
text and illustrations and noticed significant
details such as clothing and fonts used for various
characters.
• Emily showed a strong sense of characterisation.
She identified individual personality traits; e.g.
Smudge ‘She’s a cheerful animal’; Mum ‘posh’; Dad
‘he’s a worn person’. She also clearly identified with
Smudge ‘I reckon Smudge is great. That’s how I’d
dress!’ and empathised with Charles.’ I wouldn’t
like to be in his shoes!’ She also infers characters’
motivations for behaving in particular ways e.g.
describing Mum as being ‘worried about what others
think’; and having a ‘pedigree Labrador’.
• She discussed many other text aspects including
storyline and identified broad themes including
friendship; Charles’ loneliness; parent-child
relationships.
• Emily was also prepared to grapple with
ambiguity and try to resolve uncertainty
particularly in relation to the question about how
many visits to the park, finally reflecting that it
was one visit and ‘The voices were different people’s
point of view.’
• Finally she demonstrated considerable insights
into Anthony Browne’s style and compared it to
the ‘creativity’ of other authors and/or illustrators
such as ‘Margaret Wild’.
It is interesting to consider the different ways
this substantial knowledge and advanced ability
to flexibly apply strategies has developed. Emily
demonstrates a complex reading system that would
support her in a range of ways both in the classroom
and beyond. Her exposure to a range of quality
picture books, especially a collection from the
same author could be an important support in the
development of this sophisticated knowledge.
Emily’s metacognition – comments on her
own behaviours as a reader
PR IM AR Y
• Emily considers herself a good reader. She
recognises reading is a process which involves
thinking ‘it helps your brain be more creative’. She
also made lots of references to reading being the
capacity to read hard words.
• She knows reading helps her to: know about
the world; acquire new vocabulary; even spell
difficult words e.g. ‘sophisticated’
• In terms of making sense of text she described a
range of fix-up strategies such as ‘slowing down’ ‘rereading’ and ‘reading-on’
PR AC T ICA LLY
Emily is a Year 4 student from an English Speaking
Background who attends a comprehensive primary
school in Western Sydney. Emily is a confident and
capable reader, reading above grade expectations.
She has had limited exposure to explicit teaching
about comprehension strategies. In this think aloud
experience and conversation, she was reading an
unseen text, Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne.
She had however previously read Gorilla and
Piggybook also authored by Anthony Browne. The
full transcript is available at http://www.slideshare.
net/nsprainger/think-aloud-conversation-withemily-6035681
Emily’s comprehension of text
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• Emily also was able to identify visualisation as
helping her as a reader e.g. ‘using pictures’ to help
in understanding story in picture books and
‘making pictures in your mind’ when pictures are
absent.
• She speculates – predicts and questions freely
and ‘out loud’ e.g. ‘I still don’t understand why he has
man arms!’
• She makes connections – to authors’ styles and
other texts and how they help her as a reader
The cases of Bella and Emily provide important
information as we consider the value of think alouds
for assessment. The cases demonstrate that each
student has different strengths in terms of their
reading comprehension, and at this stage Emily’s
metacomprehension is more sophisticated than
Bella’s. Both examples offer a window into these
students’ thinking and provide specific insights
for the next steps required for their learning. For
us, this is evidence that student think alouds
are a worthwhile assessment tool, and therefore
something we will continue to utilise.
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Benefits of the Student Think Aloud as an
assessment tool
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• It can be done anywhere, anytime with any text
(like a running record)
• Natural conversation flows as students have a
point of reference (the text)
• The oral nature does not disadvantage those who
are less familiar with pencil and paper tests or
ESL students where the language of questioning
can sometimes inhibit responses
• As with numeracy interviews students are
encouraged to justify their thinking and elaborate
• You can potentially learn far more about a student
and how they process than from traditional
testing
• The tool provides information not readily
available on standardised tests
Strategy Index (MSI) instrument, (Schmitt, 1990)
– a multiple-choice questionnaire which asks
students about strategies that might be used
before, during and after reading a narrative
selection?
• Is it worth devoting time to this for every
student, like we would for Numeracy Assessment
Interviews?
Some teaching possibilities/considerations
• Teacher think alouds during episodes such as
shared reading and reading aloud
• Jointly constructed Anchor Charts focusing on
cognitive strategies used by effective readers
• Oral sharing, practice & reflection e.g. Turn and
Talk; Say Something (Hoyt, 2009)
• Student journals – students can self-assess and set
goals for themselves
• Students could film themselves reading and then
record comments using webcam/flip video
• Reading conferences
References
Duke, N.K. & Pearson, P.D. (2002). Effective Practices for
Developing Reading Comprehension. In A.E. Farstrup &
S.J. Samuels (Eds.), What Research has to say about Reading,
Third Edition. (pp. 205–242). International Reading
Association, Inc.
Gee, H. (1998). Metacomprehension strategies: Help for
struggling readers. PEN 112. Marrickville. NSW: Primary
English Teachers Association.
Hoyt, L. (2009). Revisit, Reflect, Retell: Time-Tested Strategies
for Teaching Reading Comprehension. Portsmouth:
Heinemann.
Schmitt, M.C. (1990). ‘A questionnaire to measure
children’s awareness of strategic reading processes’, The
Reading Teacher, 43(7), 454–61.
Snowball, D. (2005). Teaching Comprehension: An interactive
professional development course. 3–6. Port Washington, N.Y.
Aussie Interactive.
Wade, S.E. (1990). Using Think Alouds to Assess
Comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 43(7), 442–451.
Questions we still want to further explore
• Should the student read the text itself silently or
aloud?
• Should we be using the same text for all children
so comparisons can be made?
• Do we need standardised measures by which
to compare student thoughts e.g. a literacy
continuum or rubric?
• Do we need to try several think alouds using
different genres or at different levels of difficulty
to get a true picture of the student as a reader?
• Could this strategy be incorporated into guided
sessions and/or independent reading conferences?
• Would the results be similar if using ‘self-report’
assessments such as the The Metacomprehension
Nicole, Daniel and Kathy have been working as Teaching
Educators for the Catholic Education Office in the Diocese of
Parramatta for the past three years. A major part of their role
has been to work alongside teachers in classrooms and with
school leadership teams to improve the literacy outcomes for
students in Catholic schools in western Sydney, particularly in
the area of reading comprehension.