Beck and McKeown (2001)

Important Points:

One of the important points that I found in the article was the subject of pictures.  I learned that when completing a text talk lesson that you should not show the pictures until the questions are fully answered.  Students could potentially avoid and ignore the linguistic content and only look at the pictures.  This is problematic because the pictures could only tell part of the story, or it could lead students to misunderstand what is happening in the story.

Another important point that I came across in this article was about background information.  The article contained a lot of research about background information, and how students will tend to use only this information to respond to questions.  When asked a question about what was just read to them, they will use their background knowledge to answer the question and completely ignore what was read.

One last point that I found to be important in this article was of follow-up questions.  I think that it made it very clear as to what type of questions to ask and even gave excellent examples.  It specified to ask students open ended questions so that they would be able to give you a detailed response.  By providing the students with these questions it allows them to give multiple responses, and even develop on previous ones.

Planning and Performing a Text Talk Lesson:

1. Select a text that is appropriate.
2. Make sure that the text contains rare and challenging vocabulary as well as grammatical strategies.
3. Create open ended questions for the students to answer before, during, and after the reading of the text.
4. Read the text to the students and ask the questions that were prepared.
5. Be sure that the students have full understanding of the story; if necessary, re-read or repeat questions.

Overall, a text talk lesson assists students in better understanding the text by allowing them to think and discuss the story as it is read to them.