Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Listening
INTRODUCTION
CLASSROOM CLOSE-UP
Second Graders Listen to Cook-a-Doddle-Doo!
ESSENTIALS
Essential #1: The Listening Process
Essential #2: Purposes for Listening
STRATEGIES
Listening Strategies
Minilessons
CLASSROOM PRACTICE
Interactive Read-Alouds: Getting Students
Engaged in Listening
Learning to Do School: Ways to Improve
Students Efferent Listening
Developing a Critical Ear
A Is for Authentic Assessment: Does Anyone
Assess Listening?
REVIEW
The Big Ideas
Classroom Inquiry
INTRODUCTION
Listening has been called the neglected or ignored language art for
more than 50 years because it is rarely taught in kindergarten through
eighth-grade classrooms (Pinnell & Jaggar, 2003). Students are admonished to listen, but few teachers teach students how to improve their listening strategies. Teachers usually assume that children come to school
already knowing how to listen. Also, some teachers feel that it is more
important to spend the limited instructional time available on reading
and writing instruction. Despite these concerns about teaching listening,
most teachers agree that students need to know how to listen because it
is the most used language art (Opitz & Zbaracki, 2004).
Listening is the first language process that children acquire, and it
provides the basis for the other language arts (Lundsteen, 1979). Infants
use listening to begin the process of learning to comprehend and produce language. From the beginning of their lives, children listen to
sounds in their immediate environment, attend to speech sounds, and
construct their knowledge of oral language. Listening also is important
in learning to read. Children are introduced to written language by listening to stories that parents and other caregivers read to them. When
children are read to, they begin to see the connection between what
they hear and what they see on the printed page and to gain an understanding of stories. The processes of
reading, viewing, and listening and
the strategies used during these three
processes are similar in many ways.
The second graders in Mr. Hernandezs classroom are involved in a monthlong study of folktales, and this week,
theyre comparing several versions of The Little Red Hen
and reading related books. On Monday, Mr. Hernandez read
aloud Paul Galdones Little Red Hen (1985), and the students
reread it with buddies the next day. Next, he read aloud Margot Zemachs The Little Red Hen: An Old Story (1983), and
the second graders compared it to Galdones version. On
Wednesday and Thursday, the students read The Little Red
Hen in their basal reading textbooks and compared this version with the others.
Parent volunteers came into the classroom on Wednesday
to make bread with the students. The second graders learned
how to read a recipe and use measuring cups and other cooking tools as they made the bread. They baked the bread in the
school kitchen, and what the students especially enjoyed was
eating their freshly baked breadstill warm from the oven
dripping with butter and jam.
The nest day, Mr. Hernandez read aloud Bread, Bread, Bread
(Morris, 1989), an informational book about the kinds of bread
that people eat around the world, and parents brought in different kinds of bread for the students to sample, including tortillas,
rye bread, croissants, bagels, Jewish matzoh, blueberry muffins,
Indian chapatty, and biscuits. As they sampled the breads, the students took turns talking about the kinds of bread their families eat.
Today, the students are sitting on a carpet as Mr. Hernandez prepares to read aloud Cook-a-Doodle-Doo! (Stevens &
Crummel, 1999), the story of the Little Red Hens greatgrandson, Big Brown Rooster, who manages to bake a strawberry shortcake with the help of three friendsTurtle,
Iguana, and Pig. The teacher sets out a story box of objects
related to the story: a chef s hat, a flour sifter, an egg beater,
a plastic strawberry, an oven mitt, a shortcake pan, a timer, a
pastry blender, and measuring cups
and spoons. The students identify
the objects, and Mr. Hernandez preShould teachers encourage discussion as they read a story aloud
pares a word card for each one so
that students can later practice
or postpone it until afterward?
matching objects and word cards at a
Teachers often ask students to listen quietly while they read a story aloud and then
center. Almost immediately, Mikey
encourage them to talk about it afterward, sharing ideas, clarifying confusions,
guesses, I know what the story is
and making connections to deepen their understanding. Other teachers, however,
about! Little Red Hen is going to
invite students to become actively involved in the story as they are reading it
cook something, but it isnt bread.
aloud. These teachers stop reading periodically to pose questions to stimulate disUm . . . Maybe it is strawberry jam to
cussion and ask students to make predictions. As you read this Classroom Closeput on the bread.
Up, notice which approach Mr. Hernandez uses and think about how he uses
Thats a good prediction, Mikey,
discussion to support his second graders comprehension.
but let me get one more clue for this
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the opposite of tall cake? Everyone laughs, including Mr. Hernandez. He explains that shortcake is flatter than cake, like a biscuit. Mikey asks, Is it like a brownie? Brownies are flatter than
chocolate cake. Thats a good comparison, Mr. Hernandez
says. Sammy offers: A tortilla is flatter than a piece of bread.
Good! Thats another good comparison, the teacher responds.
All this talk about food is making me hungry.
Look at this, Mr. Hernandez says as he points to the
cookbook that Big Brown Rooster is holding in the illustration.
Thats Little Red Hens cookbookThe Joy of Cooking
Alone, he laughs. My wifes favorite cookbook is called The
Joy of Cooking, he explains. I wonder why the word alone has
been added to the title of her cookbook. Thats because no
one would help her make bread, Mallory explains.
The teacher continues reading the story aloud. He turns
the page and shows students the illustration, a picture of Big
Brown Rooster talking to a dog, a cat, and a goose, and the students, remembering the events from The Little Red Hen,
spontaneously call out to Rooster, No, dont ask them. They
wont help you! Big Brown Rooster does ask the three animals
to help him, and as the students predicted, they refuse. As Mr.
Hernandez reads the Not I refrain, the students join in. Sondra comments on the similarities to The Little Red Hen
story: Theres a dog, a cat, and a goose like in the other story,
and they wont listen to the Big Brown Rooster either. Then
the students predict that Big Brown Rooster, like Little Red
Hen, will have to cook alone.
On the next several pages, the students learn that three
other animalsTurtle, who can read recipes, Iguana, who can
get stuff, and Pig, who is a tasting expertoffer to help. The
students get excited. I think this story is going to be different.
Its better, Cristina comments. Mr. Hernandez wonders aloud
if these three animals will be good helpers, and the students
agree that they will be.
The rooster calls the four of them a team on the next page,
and Mr. Hernandez asks, What is a team? The students mention basketball teams and name their favorite teams, so the teacher
rephrases his question: What makes a group of basketball players a team? What do they do when they are a team? Students respond that players work together to make a score and win a game.
So, what kind of team are the rooster, the turtle, the iguana, and
the pig? Connor explains, They are a cooking team. I predict
they will work together to cook strawberry shortcake. Then
Raymond adds, And Mr. Hernandez is the captain of the team!
Mr. Hernandez continues reading, as Turtle reads the
recipe and Iguana collects the needed ingredients for strawberry shortcake. In the story, Iguana doesnt know the difference between a flower and flour, and because the students seem
confused, too, the teacher explains the homophones. Iguana
doesnt know about cooking tools and procedures either; he
wants to use a ruler instead of a measuring cup to measure flour
and he looks for teaspoons in a teapot, for example. Because the
students recently used measuring cups and spoons when they
baked bread, they are more knowledgeable than Iguana;
Sammy says, That iguana is silly. Hes not very smart either.
On the next page, Iguana misunderstands stick of butter. He
breaks a stick from a tree branch, and Lacey calls out, No,
Iguana, thats the wrong kind of stick.
Listening
41
The teacher reads that the characters finish mixing the inreflects, because its funny and serious, too. Whats funny
gredients and put the batter in the oven to bake. Wow! Im
in the story? the teacher asks. The students say that Iguana is
surprised that Pig is being so good, Mallory offers. I thought
the funniest character, and the funniest part is when the shorthed gobble up all the shortcake from the mixing bowl. The
cake falls on the floor and Pig gobbles it up. Then Mr. Herother students agree. So, now you think the shortcake is going
nandez asks, Whats serious in the story? The students
to turn out right? Mr. Hernandez asks. Most of the students
recognize the authors message and identify it as the serious
think that it will, but Jesus and Mikey predict trouble ahead.
part of the book. They say the books message is that a job is
Mr. Hernandez continues reading: The characters cut the
easier to do when you work together as a team. Im glad
strawberries in half and make whipped cream while the shortRooster had a team, said Sondra. What about us? Mr. Hercake is in the oven. As the teacher reads, some of the students
nandez asks, Do we have a team? Mikey says, I never really
spontaneously pretend to cut strawberries or use the egg beater
thought of it before, but I guess our class is a team. Mr. Herto whip the creamthey dramatize cooking activities.
nandez responds, What do you think makes us a team? We
The next several pages tell how Rooster takes the shortcake
help each other learn and do our work, Larry answers. The
out of the oven, lets it cool, and slices it in half, and assembles
other students agree.
the layers of shortcake with cake, whipped cream, and strawFinally, Mr Hernandez shows the students the last page
berries. Mikey notices that Pig smells the shortcake when it
of the book with Little Red Hens recipe for strawberry
comes out of the oven and really wants to taste it. I still think
shortcake, and he surprises them by announcing that he
that Pig is bad news, he says.
brought in the ingredients and that they will make strawberry
Finally the strawberry shortcake is ready to eat, and Rooster
shortcake after lunch.
says, If Great-Granny could see me now! Mr. Hernandez asks
The students regularly make charts using a combination of
what the sentence means. Connor answers, Rooster wants her
drawing and writing in their reading logs to help them reto know he is a good cook, too! Lacey suggests, Rooster is
member an important idea about each story they read or listen
really proud of himself. Raymond says, I think Rooster wants
to read aloud. After reading Cook-a-Doodle-Doo!, they make
Little Red Hen to know that he has a team to help him cook.
charts about how the characters in the story were a team. Mr.
Mr. Hernandez turns the page, and the students gasp: The
Hernandez helps the students brainstorm a list of words they
illustration shows the strawberry shortcake falling off the plate as
might want to use on their charts and writes the words on the
Iguana carries it to the table. Oh no, its ruined! Mallory says.
chalkboard so that they can spell them correctly. The words
They cant eat it because its on the floor. Pig can! Yes, Pig
they brainstorm include: team, Big Brown Rooster, Turtle,
can! Now it really is his turn! Mikey
says gleefully. Jesus cheers.
One Students Chart About the Team
What about the other animals? Mr. Hernandez asks. Wont
they get to eat strawberry shortcake? At first, the students guess
that they wont, and then Jacob offers, Well, they could go to the
store and buy more food and make
another strawberry shortcake.
Most of the students agree that
Jacob has a good idea, but Larry disagrees, No way. Snip, snap, snout.
This storys told out, said Pig.
Both the teacher and the students
laugh as Larry suggests an alternative ending using the final words
from the The Gingerbread Man
story they read several weeks before.
Mr. Hernandez reads the last
few pages in the book, and the students learn that the animals do
make another delicious strawberry
shortcake for everyone to eat. The
students are satisfied with how the
story turned out. Im really glad
everyone got to eat some strawberry shortcake, Cristina says.
Its a really good story, Sammy
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Listening
43
People use discriminative listening to distinDiscriminative guish sounds and develop sensitivity to
Listening
nonverbal communication. Teaching discriminative listening involves one sort of activity in the primary grades and a different activity for older
students. Children use discriminative listening as they develop
phonemic awareness, the ability to blend and segment the sounds
in spoken words, identify rhyming words, and spell words.
Children also learn to listen to the nonverbal messages
that people communicate. For example, young children
quickly recognize the unspoken message when a parents expression changes from a smile to a frown or when a teacher expresses puzzlement. Older students learn the meanings of
more sophisticated forms of body language, such as people
folding their arms over their chest to signify stubbornness or
an invasion of their space. They also recognize how teachers
emphasize that something they are teaching is important,
such as by writing it on the chalkboard, speaking more loudly,
or repeating information.
People listen aesthetically when theyre listening for enjoyment to stories being read
aloud, as Mr. Hernandezs students did in
the Classroom Close-Up. The focus of this
type of listening is on the lived-through experience and the
connections that listeners make to the literature.
As students listen to the teacher read aloud well-crafted
stories such as Charlottes Web (White, 1980) and Thunder
Cake (Polacco, 1990), they engage with the text and step into
the secondary world of the story. In Charlottes Web, they feel
the unlikely friendship between Charlotte and Wilbur, and in
Thunder Cake, they understand the granddaughters fear of
thunderstorms and the urgency with which she and her grandmother collect the ingredients and prepare the thunder cake.
The outcome of aesthetic listening is an emotional response. In
addition to listening to teachers read stories aloud, children
also listen aesthetically when they
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Aesthetic
Listening
Discriminative
Aesthetic
Efferent
Critical
Distinguish among
sounds
Understand a message
Evaluate a message
Participate in phonemic
awareness activities
Notice rhyming words
in poems and songs
Recognize alliteration
and onomatopoeia
Experiment with tongue
twisters
Listen to informational
books read aloud
Listen to directions
Listen to the teacher
present information
Use graphic organizers
Listen to oral reports
View informational
videos
Listen during minilessons
Listening
45
Listening Strategies
Listening happens every day in every classroom. Students listen as the teacher reads stories aloud, and they listen to the
teacher give directions and present information. Even though
listening has been called the neglected language art, theres no
doubt that it plays a significant role in classroom activities.
However, what has been neglected is teaching students how to
be more effective listeners. Most of what has traditionally been
called listening instruction is merely practice: When students
listen to the teacher present information during a science unit
and then complete a worksheet, for example, teachers assume
that students know how to listen and that they will be able to
complete the assignment. Through activities like these, students only practice whatever listening strategies they already
possess.
The best way to improve childrens listening is by teaching
listening strategies (Brent & Anderson, 1993; Opitz &
Zbaracki, 2004). Teachers use Dorn and Soffoss (2001) four
teacher behaviorsmodeling, coaching, scaffolding, and fadingas they teach minilessons about listening strategies and
guide students to become more effective listeners.
Students use some strategies, such as activating background
knowledge and monitoring their understanding, for most types of
listening, but others are particularly effective for certain listening
purposes. Many of these strategies are the same ones that students
use for reading and viewing, the other receptive language arts.
Part 2
as They Listen
Efferent Listening
organizing
recognizing big ideas
questioning
summarizing
Critical Listening
determining the authors
viewpoint
identifying persuasive
techniques
evaluating
drawing conclusions
nize the big ideas, and summarize the presentation so that they
can evaluate the message.
Not only is it important that students learn
strategies to improve their ability to listen,
but students also use many of the same
strategies for listening that they use for
reading and viewing. Listening serves as a
bridge to reading: Once students learn to
use a listening strategy, they can apply what they have learned
to reading and viewing. These strategies affect comprehension,
no matter whether students are comprehending what they are
listening to or what they are reading or viewing. Students need
to learn to vary how they listen to fit their purpose for listening
and develop specific strategies to use for different types of listening (Brent & Anderson, 1993; Jalongo, 1991). Capable listeners often use predicting and visualizing when listening
aesthetically to stories, but many less capable listeners have only
one approach to listening, no matter what the purpose: They
listen as hard as they can and try to remember everything. This
strategy is destined to fail for at least two reasons. First, trying
to remember everything places an impossible demand on
short-term memory; and second, many items in a message are
not important enough to remember. Often students equate listening with intelligence, and less capable listeners assume that
they are poor listeners because they just arent smart enough.
The ListeningReadingViewing
Connection
T-Chart
Listening critically
means listening to
evaluate or judge
the message, and
the most important strategy for critical listening is evaluating (Lundsteen, 1979). Students use
the evaluating strategy to think about
these questions:
Strategies for
Critical
Listening
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MINILESSON
Visualizing
Mrs. Armstrong Teaches Visualizing to Her
Fourth Graders
1.
2.
3.
MINILESSON
Getting Clues
Mrs. Rodriquezs Students Watch for Clues
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
5.
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Part 2
modeling fluent
and expressive
reading. They stop
periodically to ask
questions to focus
students on
specific points in
the text and
involve them in
other activities.
Involve
students in
after-reading activities
Students participate in discussions
and other types of
response activities.
Listening
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Part 2
Theory to Practice
Mrs. Cooper reads Jean Craighead Georges chapterbook story One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest (1990). As
she begins, Mrs. Cooper asks the students to listen aesthetically and to imagine that they are Tepui, an Indian boy
living in the Venezuelan rain forest, who helps scientists
find a new species of butterfly. The next day, she asks them
to listen criticallyto determine the authors message
about preserving the rain forest. After she finishes reading, Mrs. Cooper invites students to draw pictures of Tepui
that emphasize the authors message.
Benefits
of Reading
Aloud
merous benefits:
Listening
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Part 2
Listening
53
Propaganda Devices
Glittering Generality
Propagandists use generalities
such as environmentally safe to
enhance the quality of a product.
Even though the generality is
powerful, listeners think beyond
the generality to assess the
product.
Testimonial
Advertisers associate a product
with an athlete or movie star.
Listeners consider whether the
person offering the testimonial
has the expertise to judge the
quality of the product.
Name Calling
Persuaders try to pin a bad label
on someone or something they
want listeners to dislike, such as
calling a person unpatriotic.
Listeners then consider the effect
of the label.
Card Stacking
Propagandists often use only
items that favor one side of an
issue; unfavorable facts are
ignored. To be objective, listeners
seek information about other
viewpoints.
Bandwagon
Advertisers claim that everyone
is using their product. For
example, four out of five physicians recommend this medicine.
Listeners consider whether
everyone really does use this
product.
Rewards
Propagandists offer rewards for
buying their products. Children
are lured by toys in fast-food
meals, and adults by rebates from
manufacturers. Listeners ask
whether the reward makes the
product worth buying.
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teachers dont know for sure that it was the result of how well
they listened; it could be that they already knew the information or that theyve learned to compensate for their weak listening skills by using classmates comments to their
advantage. Even more troubling is that when children cant
Once teachers become more involved in teaching listening,
apply the content they have heard presented, teachers dont
theyll begin to assess students listening. The purpose of this
know why. They may be ineffective listeners, but its also posassessment is rarely to assign a grade; instead, it is to determine
sible that they didnt understand the purpose for listening,
whether students are listening effectively so teachers can take
didnt activate background knowledge, or didnt have adeaction when students arent successful.
quate knowledge about the topic. A classmate may have distracted them, or a personal problem may have occupied their
thoughts. In addition, English learners might have been unfamiliar with key vocabulary words or been overwhelmed by the teachers speed of presentation or
sophisticated sentence structure.
Checking Childrens Listening Capacity Level
With the current testing mandates, teachers
might consider assessing listening a low priority, but
Teachers can determine whether students are likely to understand
because so much instruction is presented orally,
grade-level books by checking their listening capacity level using an
thats a mistake. Assessment is an integral compoinformal reading inventory (IRI), such as The Critical Reading Invennent of listening instruction (Opitz & Zbaracki,
tory: Assessing Students Reading and Thinking (Applegate, Quinn,
2004). Teachers commonly assume that students
& Applegate, 2004). Teachers follow the instructions in the IRI mancan understand the books they read aloudif the
ual, but instead of having students read the grade-level passage, they
topic of the book is appropriate for the students
read it aloud to students and then ask the comprehension questions.
grade level but the text is too difficult to for them to
If students answer the questions correctly, then they can usually lisread themselves, then students should be able to unten to grade-level books and understand them. If students cant anderstand the book if they listen to it read aloud. Ofswer the questions, then teachers repeat the listening test using a
ten that is the case, but not for everyone. For
passage for a lower grade level. Sometimes teachers find that stuchildren who are not successful listeners, teachers
dents listening capacity is one or more levels lower than their curmay want to check their listening capacity level usrent grade level; for these students to listen to and understand the
ing an informal reading inventory.
books that are read aloud, teachers must teach listening strategies
Assessment and instruction are linked, so teachand provide extra support while they are reading.
ers need to do these things to be able to assess their
students listening:
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Part 2
Classroom Inquiry
Students learn strategies to listen more effectively and then apply many of these
strategies to reading. To explore what
strategies your students use when they listen, think about these questions:
Listening
Strategies
Interactive
Read-Alouds
Its essential that students are actively involved when teachers read aloud stories,
informational books, and poetry. To examine how you read aloud, ask yourself
these questions:
Listening
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