Have you ever found yourself talking out loud as you work? Did it make you seem like you were losing your mind? Have you ever felt as if you think better when doing it out loud? Did you ever think it could be a good thing?
Thinking aloud is a great way for students to gain a higher understanding of the skills taught. But what is it? Thinking aloud is a way to get students to slow down and think about their thought processes. It helps students to understand what type of thinking is needed for a specific task.
Thinking aloud can be used in many areas of education. Specifically it can be used in math. Thinking aloud in math allows students to be engaged and walk through the problem step by step. Math think-alouds allow students to crawl into your brain and bring invisible mental processes visible. Scholastic offers several different examples of think-alouds in math. One I like to use is elapsed time. I always talk out loud when I think about how much time I have left or how much time is in a day. Scholastic also gives many examples of using math think-alouds at home, such as estimating the cost of groceries while shopping.
HotChalk, an online lesson plan page, offers a fantastic lesson plan to introduce and teach how to use math think-alouds. It can be adapted for any age although the lesson is set up for grades 6-9. One thing I found very useful is the math think-aloud prompts. It gives examples of prompts to use in order to get students to think aloud during math. Some examples of the prompts are:
· The problem says…
· What am I trying to solve?
· The important information is…
· The strategy I will use to solve this problem is…
Here is an online printable version to use with all the math think-aloud prompts.
Focus on Effectiveness has an article from a first grade teacher explaining how she incorporated math think-alouds into her classroom. She first taught them problem solving strategies in a very systematic way in order to get her students into a routine of thinking “math”. The first step is to make a picture, then act it out, make a systematic list, guess, check and revise, look for a pattern and eliminate possibilities. As they grew throughout the year, her students were taught to summarize what they were doing as they were in the process. She also had her students use the math think-aloud prompts when working through a problem. This first grade teacher shows no matter what grade you teach, math think-alouds can be effective.
In my school, we have had a huge push for think-alouds during reading. I had no idea there was think-alouds in math. I am currently working with a math interventionist to come up with activities for low math achievers to work on. I plan on using the math think-alouds not only with them but with my class.
The goal, I am finding, is create math thinkers, not just a group of bodies who can produce an answer.
They need to be asking why and how.
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Think-alouds. Interesting. I always knew talking to myself would come into fashion. But unfortunately what I am saying has nothing to do with math. I think right off the bat it would be something that would drive me crazy and distract me. It sounds like when people count their cards out loud when playing card games. It might have adcademic reasons, but I think it would certainly have to be controlled and structured to be effective and not just a free for all kind of thing. But on the other hand I think talking things out and through is a good idea - in any area. Sometimes hearing it outloud makes more sense than just thinking it in your mind.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Haraseth
Jenna,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting topic that I plan on mentioning to my fellow teachers. I think a lot of our students could benefit from this idea. Thinking out loud is something I have always done because it helps me remember something if I say. I am sure it may work the same for my students. Thinking-alouds would probably work great for review as well. Good article.
Blaire
I have been doing some think aloud activities and never knew that is what they really were until I read this article. Very interesting! I have also used them in reading primarly but with a new math series this year we have also been doing think alounds in math.
ReplyDeleteIn reading I think it is important for my first grade students to hear what they are reading so they can connect the words they read to what the word and I think it helps them comprehend better. I recently bought something called a toobaloo that really helps with this. It's an object that looks like a phone and you whisper into it and you hear it louder into your own ear. The kids love them!
In math this year the best think alouds have been the problem solving like you described and their math fact sheets. They read aloud the entire problem before they answer it and when we check it as a class we read the entire problem again and this has been so helpful this year! Great article, good to know that it is known to be helpful!
I find myself talking out loud all the time. I list off things that need to be done in the order I want to get them done. I am a verbal learner so I think it is a way to keep me organized. I like using think alouds while conducting a guided reading activity. Usually we start with a picture walk. As I look at the pictures I talk about what clues they give me. As we continue through the book other students are encouraged to talk about what they see and why they think it will be helpful when we read the book.
ReplyDeleteI talk to myself daily. It is how I process different things. My children laugh at me when I do this. I never thought of incorporating talking to myself into different activities. Thanks for the great sites. Even though my students are MH, they could use some of these to learn. We do a lot of role playing with social skills as teams, but never individually. I think that they would enjoy doing it.
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