Beck and McKeown (2001) Assignment

Important Points:

• Children’s language and comprehension abilities are developed through the depth and extensive experiences received during read aloud’s.
• Read-aloud’s are more important than what the title consists of.  It involves the kinds of text presented, types of questions asked before and after, and often the amount of pictures presented to the children during the story time.
• The key to experiences of learning language and gaining comprehension relies not only on listening to the book language, but also on discussing the ideas about the book.  This allows children to think more in depth of the story instead of just listening to the reader and looking at the images as he/she reads.
• Text Talk suggests that selection of texts, initial questions, follow-up questions, pictures, background knowledge, and vocabulary are all crucial in a child’s language and comprehension development.

Text Talk Lesson:

1. Select a proper text such as a story that exhibits an event structure and some complexities of events to provide a little text for children to build meaning.
2. Provide open-ended questions, such as open-minded questions of what the story is going to be about.  It allows children to think and be more complex than just assuming by the title of the book.  It allows children to flow right into the story.
3. While reading the story, use follow-up questions to scaffold the students thinking that encourage elaboration and development of initial ideas.  This shows whether the child is comprehending the story or not.
4. Show the children pictures every few pages.  If a teacher w show the children the pictures on every page, the child could guess as to what the book is about than actually learning the language and comprehending the story, which is what Text and Talk is focusing on.
5. Some students may have prior background knowledge to the book you are reading such as, its history, similar stories, etc.  Teachers should always invite prior knowledge to possibly teach other students and also bring out the importance of the story.  Prior knowledge should be elicited with care during a read aloud lesson. It may be used to great effect in the beginning of the story while introducing the book. However, prior knowledge should be invoked only when necessary during the read-aloud of the book lest it may take the kids away from the story plot.
6. I think one of the biggest ideas in the Text and Talk lesson is vocabulary.  Children need to learn vocabulary at a young age and increase their vocabulary constantly.  This provides the children with a wider range of language and a better chance of comprehending more of the story than others.

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