A think-aloud is “a strategic model for active thinking during the reading process, which is used to demonstrate other reading comprehension strategies, including monitoring, visualizing, and summarizing.” Think-alouds are like “eavesdropping on someone’s thinking.” With this technique, teachers verbalize while reading. Their verbalizations include explaining things they’re doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. We use the think-aloud strategy to model for students how good readers create meaning from a text. 

Why use think-alouds?

• It allows students to learn how to take control of their thinking as they read. It also improves their comprehension.
• It instructs students on how to re-read a passage or sentence, read ahead to increase comprehension, and/or look for context clues.
• It decelerates the reading process and allows students to monitor their reading comprehension.

How can I use think-alouds in my classroom?

For a detailed explanation of how to use think-alouds in your classroom, check out the following video.