Using the Dialogic Read Aloud Strategy to Teach Refugee Children’s Literature
Dr. Sang Hwang & Dr. Adam Weiss
Abstract
Dialogic read alouds feature the teacher facilitating discussions with students about books that the teacher reads aloud to the class. Research indicates that the dialogic read aloud strategy enhances students’ reading comprehension, oral language, and vocabulary skills. Moreover, teachers can apply the dialogic read aloud strategy to expose students to various literary genres. In the present article, the authors provide suggestions for primary-level teachers on how to incorporate the dialogic read aloud strategy while teaching a particular genre of multicultural fiction-children’s refugee literature. Specifically, the authors elaborate on dialogic read aloud activities for four works: Williams & Mohammed’s (2007) Four Feet, Two Sandals, Shulevitz’s (2008) How I Learned Geography, Milner’s (2017) My name is not Refugee, and Park & Park’s (2010) My Freedom Trip. The article particularly discusses dialogic read aloud activities related to the reading comprehension strategies of making inferences, self-monitoring one’s comprehension, and constructing mental images of texts.