Initially, I had trouble selecting a "text" for my think aloud presentation. Between my two subject areas, Math and Social Studies, a historical text would have been the easier, more obvious choice, but because I intend to teach math one day, I found a worksheet that aligned with one of the 7th grade math standards. This specific standard dealt with proportional reasoning, including interest rates, percentages and ratios.
While doing my Think aloud, I tried to demonstrate every single step needed to solve the problem, starting with reading the actual word problem. I am a very visual learner, so when I read a math problem, or anything really, I like to mark up the text by circling things, drawing arrows, and writing little notes besides certain parts. Once I read the problem through, I went through each step (including the tedious things like long division), and I think I was very thorough in my explanation.
This process was not as awkward as I initially expected it would be; I did choke at one point when I forgot what 6x8 was.... I can solve calculus and trig problems without a thought, but 6x8 really tripped me up.
I think when reading math texts, the step-by-step nature of solving problems lends itself better to the think aloud strategy compared to a science text. Math teachers do have to teach like this all of the time in math; we have to explain each part of he problem because what may be obvious to me probably is not as obvious to a 7th grader.
For anyone curious if you could pass the a 6th grade math test today...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alfredomurillo/math-for-11-year-olds?utm_term=.rbBdDJ9D2#.scELOwYOa
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