Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking

Thought Bubbles

Lesson Idea from "Comprehension Connection" by Tanny McGregor

What taught:

Metacognition means, thinking about your thinking. When we stop to think during reading, it helps us understand the text better. We can make our thinking visible by telling others what we are thinking while reading a book. This is called "Thinking Aloud". When we are thinking aloud we are being metacognitive.

How Taught:

1. Display the word metacognition on a word strip and discuss.

2. Show some examples of cartoons (Peanuts cartoons work great) and have the students examine the text "bubbles". Ask them if they notice anything different between the types of "bubbles" used. Explain that when characters in a cartoon are saying something, the text bubble has a triangular tail, but when the character is only thinking about something, there will be a series of small bubbles leading to the bigger bubble. This is so the reader can see what the character is thinking.

3. Tell the students that you will model how to read a book and then "think aloud" about what you are thinking. Using a premade "Thought Bubble" begin to read a story aloud to the students, then stop every few pages, put your face in to the thought bubble and tell the students what you are thinking. They will giggle at first, but will also get the point and want to use the thought bubble themselves later.

4. As you choose the book to read aloud, be sure to use a good thought-provoking story. A couple of my favorites are Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting and An Angel for Solomon Singer by Cynthia Rylant. With younger students I sometimes use the book Roxaboxen by Barbara Cooney. For older students I like How Many Days to America by Eve Bunting or The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco.

5. After you have modeled the use of the thought bubble for part of the story, invite students to come up and share their thinking for the rest of the story. You could even use this again the next day with another story to give the students more practice.

How Evaluated

To evaluate the use of this strategy, you can use this metacognition worksheet. Students either listen to or read a story and stop at designated points to write about what they are thinking in the thought bubbles.