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Read Aloud Routine for Improving Vocabulary and Comprehension

Par Dr. Stephanie Stollar Dernière mise à jour 2025/08/22

Description

Wanting to up your read aloud game? This lesson plan from Dr. Stephanie Stollar will support you in maximizing vocabulary and comprehension in your read alouds.
This lesson plan supports the explicit instruction of vocabulary words, syntactic structures, knowledge, and comprehension.
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8 commentaires

  1. I don’t understand how this lesson / routine could be used in a grade 8 class. Could you provide some example texts for different grade levels?
    In particular, the suggestion of using “text above their current reading level” This is the second grade 8 teaching resource I’ve read that doesn’t have actual strategies or activities for grade 8 students.

    1. Hi Sarah,

      Thank you for asking a great question! Explicit instruction is well embedded throughout primary and junior and moving fairly quickly into Intermediate. Teachers are jumping in after seeing its success or reading about its efficacy in the research.

      Please note that quotation marks are used to designate a resource or product as italics and underlining is not available here.

      While we do not have grade 8 examples available yet in our “Learning Through Literacy” (LTL) resource, you can find an article on a registered charity in Ontario involved in Truth and Reconciliation that has the routines/resource you are referencing above in a student facing slide deck. To find this slide deck, go to the first unit of the grade 9 “Learning Through Literacy” (LTL) then scroll to the bottom of that unit to the subheading “Structured Writing” and click the heading that says “Instructional Slide Deck VOCABULARY”. (Here is the link to the page: https://onlit.org/learning-through-literacy/grade-9/personal-narratives-and-the-power-of-memory/ ) The companion text is under the heading “Mentor Text” in this same section of the unit. This would give you the gist of the routine for a “Read Aloud to Improve Vocabulary and Comprehension” with a complex text for Intermediate students in an easy to use slide deck. These routines are great on their own but are also embedded in POWeR cycles related to “Self regulated Strategy Development” (SRSD), and “Releasing Writers” cycles in resources like ONlit’s “Learning Through Literacy”. Implementing one part of an LTL unit only is a great way to test the waters so to speak, and the Mentor Text and Vocabulary Slide Deck would be great on their own! We are developing grade 7 and 8 LTL units this year! They will release one at a time as they are completed.

      This explicit instruction approach to teaching underlies many of our most powerful resources in all grades like “UFLI,” “Word Connections,” “Rewards,” “The Syntax Project,” “Releasing Writers,” etc. It signals a shift in the way we teach, away from discovery based learning, towards teacher directed learning with frequent whole class response to provide needed engagement. The article, “16 Elements of Explicit Instruction,” by Anita Archer is a nice summary.

      Just in case you would like more information on explicit instruction, there is a Five Minute Focus slide deck on the topic that is great to review and / or share with colleagues on our site as well. For a deeper dive, there is also an ONlit PD Slide Deck on Explicit Instruction. Archer is one of the biggest proponents for, and experts in explicit instruction, and I have learned so much from her text and website titled Explicit Instruction. She has videos on the website of her running these routines in various grade levels including Intermediate, so you could watch this very kind of routine in action there!

      One of my favourite things about pre-teaching vocabulary, morphology, syntax, etc. in discussion prior to reading is that it ensures all students have the knowledge needed to understand and engage with the text. That knowledge then drives the rigour in any connected writing. Our students come to us with such varied background knowledge and vocabulary, especially these days. We need to even the playing field in anyway we can in order to build reading fluency. Moreover, when we scaffold a text in this way, (and use fluency routines like partner and repeated reading) students can read texts that are harder than their “independent reading level” and are supported in both the skills, strategies and practice opportunities to attack complex text. There is a great article by Shanahan called “Why Children Should Be Taught to Read with More Challenging Texts,” that you can also find on ONlit that dives into this important idea.

      I know it sounds funny to ask a grade 8 class to repeat a word aloud or chorally read, at least it did to me at first, but I can ensure you it works in grade 7-10 classes better than I ever imagined. I am a secondary school teacher who has worked in K-10 for the past 4 years, and I have been so amazed by participation I have garnered in tough classes with older students, and the impact on student success! There is strong evidence that making the motor plan with the mouth for a new vocabulary word supports consolidation of that learning (as happens when our students repeat words aloud). It helps embed the word in memory better than just reading or writing a word. It’s why we sometimes repeat things aloud to ourselves when we are trying to remember something. I explain that bit of Science to students because a rationale is supportive in 7-9.

      Anyways, it takes a bit of practice to get Intermediate students into the swing of choral response and choral reading – a big part of explicit instruction. Starting small with model reading aloud from a text that is projected on the board (or in the hands of students) and stopping occasionally for them to read one word where we pause (I put my hand to my ear too) is a strong first step. Then we try sentences a few days later, and then I jump into competitions between one half of the class and the other as to who can chorally read or respond better. Coupled with rationale and high expectations for participation, it works incredibly well! Students tend to prefer it to writing, and the building of skills verbally prior to potentially writing about a topic makes that less onerous, and it all just builds from there. They also love talking with peers about examples and non-examples of words, or engaging in discussion of personal connections to the concepts.

      If you need help finding any of the links mentioned above, please write us at [email protected]. Thank you again for an important question!

    1. I am so sorry we missed your comment in the return from summer. Yes, using these pre-teaching vocabulary routines and a GIST with short stories or chapters in novels is so powerful. I have seen this across my board with great success, including measurable gains on Retell measures.

  3. Two common questions I hear in intermediate are: How much time do we devote to a read aloud? What skills are we addressing during a read aloud? This document helps educators ask themselves these questions, and respond critically to the needs of their students.

  5. This is a simple outline for teachers to follow with any read aloud book they would like to use. It includes a lesson format for before, during and after reading as well as a weekly plan to follow for digging deeper into a single book.

  6. This is a great sample that will provide educators with a good basis for how curriculum expectations can come together with read alouds. This will serve as a great reminder that we need comprehensive literacy, and that this also includes intentional work with read alouds.

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