Be clear with the children that there is no right or wrong answer. This helps to alleviate anxiety and promote discussion. When I started I found it helpful to include the times and questions in my lesson plan, but after a while it should become more instinctive. For Partner Talk to be effective in the classroom, there are five steps that must be executed by the teacher:

Please build in preparation time if you split students in pairs/small groups as they will need to get to know each other. Before posing the questions to students, make sure that you have strategically paired up students so that they can have thoughtful conversations. In general, typical students should be paired with students who are a bit above-average thinkers, and higher students should be paired with other students who are capable of higher-level thinking. ELL students should be paired with a student with grade-level/average vocabulary. In my experience, and the experience of others, randomly generating talk partners and changing them often is a good strategy. (Although you may want to randomly generate these pairs after school so you can make small changes if necessary without prying eyes…) The use of talk tokens should be considered a scaffolding measure, which is put in place to help students manage their talk and removed once students conduct dialogic discussions with some independence. 4. Jigsaw expert groups

Children sharing their ideas with the class is just as important as talking about them with their partner. There’s a few different ways you can do this: Or: “Matias I love how confidently you just spoke in front of the class. You and your partner worked hard in organising those thoughts.”

The Reading Reflections and Spelling Bundle includes resources that can be used for any book, poem or spelling/sight-word list throughout the school year. Many of the resources come with differentiated worksheets and activities. This bundle is great for literacy centers, independent reading time or homework activities. The teacher poses a question or provides a statement for discussion and students have a minute to discuss. A signal is given and the students in the outer circle take one step to the right, resulting in new partner formations. Either the same or a new question/statement is given. This process is repeated. Providing each member of the group with a few tokens or counters is a useful technique, when establishing the protocols for talk in the classroom, or encouraging fair participation. Each group member is provided with a few tokens. Each time a contribution is made, the student places aside a token. When all tokens have been placed aside, the student is no longer able to contribute to the discussion. Two colour tokens may be given, one to represent talk contributions and the other to represent questions to pose to the group. Speaking of praise, make sure it’s constructive and meaningful during every step (“well done” and “good listening” are neither). When planning your lesson, decide which key questions you’re going to ask and when these will be followed up by talk partners. In my experience, three times in a lesson is about right.

The success of talk partners is that it gets children involved and engaged in their learning – something most of us would agree is important in helping children to progress.

This activity may become easier and more spontaneous if repeated throughout the modules/the sessions Other resources Think, pair, share is an easy and engaging talk technique. At any stage of the lesson, students may be asked to ‘turn and talk’. The purpose of the technique may vary. At the beginning of a lesson, students may be asked to think, pair, share early connections or predictions. During an inquiry, students may be asked to share ideas, challenges or opinions. While at the end of a unit of work, students might share their reflections. Reading Logs: Focused on Reading Comprehension and Strategies (14 different reading logs each with 3 different leveled worksheets). Perfect for differentiated homework. Organising whole or small group talk interactions may require a management strategy to encourage participation of all students. Establishing the ground rules for talk and focusing on accountable talk are necessary areas to explore and re-visit with students. However, some classroom groupings include students who dominate talk or conversely are reluctant to participate. Both groups could benefit from a management strategy that makes participation explicit.

Choosing talk partners

Although research has recognised that student engagement in dialogic talk, where students initiate questions and seek responses is an enabling strategy (Alexander, 2006), not all students participate or participate effectively. It’s sometimes called think pair share, because it’s often a three-stage process. First you pose a question or talking point. Secondly, children partner up and talk about it. Finally some students share what they were discussing with the whole class. Have students sit in a position that enables them to see eye-to-eye, be it in chairs, or on the floor. Additionally, be sure to give an indicator as to which partner should start the discussion by talking first, or allow the students to choose ahead of time. In pairs, discuss 3 new things you have learnt or what you found easy or difficult or something you would like to learn in the future. Why use it The doughnut technique is useful for the generation of ideas, perhaps before an individual brainstorm. It is also useful for recalling information, sharing anecdotes or offering opinions. 3. Talk tokens

However, even if your class used talk partners with their previous teachers, you need to introduce and model how it works in your classroom. There are two main challenges that can arise with talk partners. First, the relationships between children. Partners can get stale, and some children don’t like talking to ​particular​ children. Reading Reflection Journals: Reading Skills practice that can be used with ANY text (3 different levels of worksheets, great for differentiated reading groups). However you do it, praise children who share. Fostering a healthy outlook on sharing ideas, and being respectful of others’ ideas, will do wonders for your classroom ethos. Examples of praise Another benefit is the increase in thinking time. You might fall into the trap of not giving enough time for this. Properly planning to use talk partners ensures more thinking time. This then lead to more articulate answers, which leads to better engagement for all.

The jigsaw strategy is one which can be employed when students need to explore a range of materials or texts. When participating in this strategy, a topic is divided into sub topics. The majority of participating teachers felt that it would take longer than two terms to fully embed aDialogic Teaching approach in their classrooms. It could therefore be valuable to test the impact of the intervention over alonger period. It’s very important to introduce talk partners correctly. Because it’s a common teaching technique, you might have a false sense that it’s already an embedded practice. We know that the nature and quality of teaching practice in the classroom has abig impact on pupil learning. Pilots of dialogic teaching in the UK have suggested that it can change teachers’ practice, and there is other evidence that cognitively challenging classroom talk can lead to gains for pupils in language, mathematics and science, but this is the first trial of this approach. Another benefit of talk partners is the amazing opportunity it gives you and the other adults in the room to observe and listen to children doing something incredibly important: talking. Challenges you may face