Guidelines and Student Handouts for Implementing Read-Aloud Strategies in Your Class

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Here is a collection of guidelines, checklists, and assessment tools to start think-aloud strategies with your students from Jeff Wilhelm's book Improving Comprehension With Think-Aloud Strategies, available in the Teacher Store.

Getting Started

There are several strategies, called general reading processes, which researchers have discovered readers use every time they read anything. If your students don't do these things, this is the place to start your think-aloud modeling since these strategies will have the greatest pay-off for them across all reading tasks.

Use these guidelines for getting started with read-aloud technigues with your students:

What Think-Alouds Can Do for Students (PDF)

Starting Points: General Processes of Reading (PDF)

Prompts that Guide Students to Use the General Reading Strategies (PDF)

Guide and Monitor Instruction

Rules of Notice Chart (PDF)
Use this chart to list things that students notice when inferring character.

Flow Chart of Comprehension Monitoring Behaviors (PDF)
Navigate students through self-monitoring reading instruction.

Stop, Ask, Fix: Student Checklist for Monitoring (PDF)
Use this handout when students are ready to take over the process of self-monitoring in small groups or individually.

Guidelines for Determining an Author's Main Idea (PDF)
Use this sample list to write a set of guidelines with your students.

Conversing With the Author Check Sheet (PDF)
Engage students in the author's craft and get them "talking back" about ideas expressed in the reading.

Genre Characteristics Chart (PDF)
This chart provides an overview of some genres (text-types) that are often read by students and the task-specific processes a reader uses to read them. As you introduce a genre, develop such lists of characteristics with your students.

Assessment Suggestions

What to Watch For: Questions to Help Assess Reading (PDF) Use think-alouds for performance-based assessment.

Visualization Check Sheet for Readers (PDF)
This handout can be used as an informal assessment of how students visualize the text.

Reading Comprehension: Follow the Clues
Face reading tests with a strategy for success.

Teaching Comprehension with Jeff Wilhelm
Understand and implement action strategies for reading comprehension. Here, you'll find support and research-based instruction guidelines for helping older readers tackle more difficult texts.

Books for Teaching Vocabulary Building Strategies
This teacher created book list includes tips for classroom use.

LESSON PLAN	Outlining Main Ideas and Details Adapted from: Expository Writing by Tara McCarthy, page 72. Teach students the importance of main idea and writing strategy with this exercise in reading, research, and expository writing.
UNIT PLAN	Myths, Folktales, & Fairy Tales Students learn about a genre through participation in a variety of online activities.
ONLINE ACTIVITY	Clifford Interactive Storybooks and Learning Games in English and Spanish Read or listen to stories in English or Spanish with Clifford the Big Red Dog, identifying words to correctly complete sentences. Plus, fun interactiv