“She does a lot of self-talk while she is reading. We don’t want her to do that,” the teacher says.
“Why?” I ask. I wonder why the teacher is seeing this self-talk as a problem.
I often get invited to observe English learners in different settings. It’s part of the work I get to do as an EL instructional coach. Sometimes I’m observing students in their regular classrooms or in an EL class or in a reading support setting. It varies, depending on the questions and concerns. While I’m observing, I take notes on language being used by the teacher and student. I observe body language that signals joy or anxiety. I also watch for strategies that a child uses to help themselves during an academic task.
On this particular day, I was observing Kayla during her reading support lesson. During the observation, I recorded the following self-talk Kayla was doing while reading:
“Oh no . . . that’s not it. Wait. Let me try . . .” she murmured as she tried to decode a new word.
“That’s so nice . . .” she whispered, pointing at something the character did on that page.
“Now I have to start again because you said it . . .” she said to herself, referring to the help the teacher had given her on that page.
“It’s apples . . . not apple,” Kayla said as she corrected her reading.
After reading the story, Kayla and the teacher had a wonderful conversation about the events in the story and the problems that the characters solved. It was clear that Kayla understood the story. Comprehension was not a problem here. So I circled back to the dialogue with the teacher about self-talking while reading. In this particular case, it wasn’t getting in the way of the child accessing the story, and it wasn’t interfering with her comprehension.
Before we dig further into considering self-talk, here are some important things we need to understand about Kayla as a little human and as a reader:
| Kayla is in first grade. She has been at her school since kindergarten.
At the beginning of the school year, Kayla’s oral language proficiency was relatively low as shown by standardized tests. The State Standardized Language Assessment called OELPA shows that her Speaking and Listening score is a 3 (intermediate level). The family speaks Arabic at home. She comes to school happy every day. She loves working with adults. She enjoys the company of the other children in her classroom. She has one older brother in middle school. |
Kayla has a wonderful personality and one that you notice right away. She is very social and outgoing. Kayla made me feel very welcomed when I was observing her. This is a child who loves being surrounded by adults. She was also very excited to work with her reading teacher. It was clear that she loves to chat.
Knowing what we know about Kayla as a child and as a reader, I understand now why she self-talks during her reading. Not only is she monitoring her reading, but this is the way she makes sense of it. This is a strategy that works for her. And I wouldn’t want to take that away from her.
So I go back to the conversation we had earlier, because I’m interested and curious to hear more about the teacher’s thinking.
“She does a lot of self-talk while she is reading. We don’t want her to do that,” the teacher says.
“Why is this something we wouldn’t want her to do?”
There’s no fixing to do here. Instead, we can think of ways to expand the strengths that Kayla brings to every reading experience. It was time for the teacher and I to explore the other aspects of Kayla as a learner and how to tap into them to expand and deepen her reading experiences.
Kayla loves language and makes sense of the world through conversations. After a conversation with the teacher that included who Kayla is as a learner and what we understand about social interactions, we came up with a few strategies to try with Kayla.
| Because Kayla . . . |
Let’s try . . . |
| loves to talk with her peers, | getting Kayla to do more book talks for the classroom community. |
| is self-monitoring her reading through self-talk, | getting her to use Garage Band or other recording software so she can hear herself read and notice her own behavior. |
| loves language and is very expressive when she talks, | reader’s theater and poetry aloud so that she can continue to grow within her strength. |
At the beginning of our conversation, the reading teacher was concerned about the amount of self-talk Kayla was doing while she was reading. Although this observation was correct, the teacher was missing the opportunity to think about this in terms of strengths. And that’s the beauty of partnerships: that we can grow in ideas and possibilities. By the end of the conversation, we had come up with reading strategies that capitalize on Kayla’s strengths.
