What immediate effect does encouraging children to think aloud during storytime have on their learning?

Encouraging children to think aloud during storytime primarily enhances their inferencing skills. When children verbalize their thoughts while listening to or reading a story, they are actively engaging with the text. This process helps them identify and analyze context clues, interpret character motivations, and make predictions about plot developments. By articulating their reasoning, children learn to connect the dots between information presented in the story and their prior knowledge, thereby deepening their comprehension and ability to infer meanings that may not be explicitly stated.

This practice aligns with effective reading strategies that emphasize the importance of metacognition—thinking about one’s own thinking. As they reflect on their thoughts and articulate them, children not only improve their inferential reasoning but also become more aware of their cognitive processes, which supports overall literacy development.