Reads Alouds vs. Interactive Read Alouds
A teacher is sitting at the front of the class, picture book held aloft, as students clustered on the rug silently listen. This is a familiar scene to many of us, and can be spotted in most classrooms around the country. Read alouds have long been championed as a crucial part of balanced literacy that lets students experience a story as a collaborative, scaffolded experience. Whether it's picture books, chapter books, poetry, or anything in between, read alouds can be a powerful way to share important content, build imaginations, and practice skills.
Yet, often, read alouds are merely a piece of performative art. The teacher draws upon their best character voices, laces the reading with dramatic pauses, and becomes the characters through their body posture and gestures. (I confess, I am certainly guilty of this.) Now, these are all wonderful storytelling techniques that SHOULD be a part of the classroom.... But if the students are sitting passively silent throughout the experience, is it really a collaborative activity?
Silence?
Interactive read alouds are all about shaking things up and getting the kids involved. Rather than keeping quiet and saving all interaction for the end discussion, students are encouraged to respond frequently throughout the reading. The reading is an ongoing collaboration between the teacher, students, and the text, rather than just the teacher -> text. Rather than encouraging silence, interactive read alouds prompt students to give authentic responses in real time. It requires switching up your attitude- rather than viewing student call outs and comments as disruptive, see them as an attempt to interact with the text!
Types of Student Responses
Student response might look a bit different in every classroom. Depending on your students, you might encourage them to call out in response to characters during the reading (as long as it's not too disruptive). Or, you might encourage students to act out pieces of the story, and encourage them to be the characters as they listen. If you have a class that struggles with being too talkative, give them a variety of silent signals they can use to signal their agreement, disagreement, excitement, nervousness, and more! Students can also write quick jots on post its to share out, or pause at points of the reading to journal and share their thoughts with a partner.
Create Community Expectations
Make sure that students understand that this is a unique experience with its own set of expectations. Decide as a class what behavior is respectful of others, and how best to interact with the texts. Every classroom's interpretation of an interactive read aloud will look slightly different. With my calm third grade students, we decided that call outs and free movement on the rug were okay, as long as it didn't distract other friends from the book. On the other hand, my first graders had to stick to silent signals and guided movement, as they tended to go overboard and off topic with the talking. Keep in mind that the goal is authentic, frequent engagement with the text- not pure chaos!
Shifting Classroom Culture
When planning interactive read alouds, I make sure to schedule frequent moments of interaction throughout the text (turn&talks, movement, silent signals, all calls), in addition to whatever the students choose to do independently. As I've shifted my practice from passive storytelling to an interactive mindset, student engagement has grown exponentially. On top of that, students who previously were shy about responding in class, have begun speaking up more frequently throughout the day, as a result of their no-stress practice during read alouds. Privileging student voice in this way has truly shifted my classroom community, and I'm excited to explore other ways to continue to do so.
