Making Thinking Visible

Jennifer Partrick
Oct 20, 2008

What does it mean to make thinking visible? This means giving your students an opportunity to 'see' how you think and to share how you think. Many students need to 'see' how good readers think in order to make the thinking processes visible. Struggling readers especially need to see these strategies modeled so that they, too, can use them as they read. The following are examples that teachers can use to make thinking visible.

Think Aloud

This is a well known strategy but one that is not used enough in classrooms. This strategy refers to pausing at times to think about what has been read thus far. This is the time when the teacher stops and questions some part of the text that is puzzling to her, wonders about the choices the character made, or predicts what she thinks might happen next. The teacher needs to remember the question that was asked and refer to it if it was answered. If the teacher made a prediction, the teacher also needs to validate if it was accurate or not. Failure to answer the question or validate the prediction could be confusing to the listener, as they will not understand the purpose of doing either one.

Journal Posts

Another strategy is to write about what you are reading. As you reflect on what you have read, stop and record your thoughts. Because this writing is for the reader, any type of writing is acceptable. The writer may use words, short phrases, or sentences. For students who have a difficult time remembering what was read, summarizing as they read is a great strategy to support poor memory skills.

Drawing

Another strategy is to draw your reflections using pens, pencils, crayons, or whatever the reader prefers. Drawing pictures helps make the words visible. Drawing can also be used to facilitate comprehension. There are times when drawing what was read helps the reader to better understand the text. Sometimes the text can be too wordy, or the sentence structure may be unusual, and drawing what was read helps unravel the confusion. Remember the drawing above from an earlier article by Carolyn Boyles? It is a visual representation to help remember the Eighth Amendment, protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Talk Time

Reflect with a partner. Talk about your understanding of the text thus far. Discuss any emotions you may be feeling. Explain why the text is making you feel a certain emotion. Finding information from the text to support your thoughts is an excellent way to immerse oneself in the text. Clarifying why you think a certain way is a good comprehension tool. This is also the time to make connections between other texts or things happening in the world. Talking is one of the best strategies that readers use to support comprehension.

Act It Out

Acting out a specific part of the text can make the thinking visible. Students who may have language barriers or syntax difficulties respond positively to acting out parts of the text that could otherwise be challenging. Matching movement to specific words helps students better understand the text, especially if it was a process.

In conclusion, teachers model each one of these strategies so that students can 'see' different ways readers interact with text. Students can then use the tool that best fits them and their needs so that the outcome is always comprehension.

Jennifer Partrick is the developer and author of the award winning Learning to Read model.