EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 7, page 121

students to think aloud about whatever came to mind after they read each sentence in the passage.
Specifically, researchers instructed: “Say out loud everything that comes to mind as you try to learn from
this statement.” After the students finished reading both passages, each student recalled everything he or she
could remember from the texts and reported all of the new ideas they had learned.

Table 7.1:
Twelve students’ think aloud responses to sentences in nonfiction texts, with each student’s recall
score.

Stu-

dent

Text

Think aloud response

Recall

score

1 Many kinds of bacteria are harmless

and some are even helpful to us. Some

of them fight other harmful bacteria.

Others make vitamins in bodies and

help us digest our food.

What are vitamins C and D? 1 8%

2 Before the microscope was invented,

the smallest living things that people

knew about were tiny insects.

I know about small insects. I know the tiny lady bugs

because the lady bug can fly and it can walk. When

there are two lady bugs, they fight with each other. 1

9%

3 Harmful germs can get into your body

in three ways, through your nose, your

mouth, and by cuts and scratches in

your skin.

Wow. Germs are stupid. 1 10%

4 Harmful germs can get into your body

in three ways, through your nose, your

mouth, and by cuts and scratches in

your skin.

I know that. And as soon as you have a cut, you suck

on it—sucked cuts heal faster. Well, because I think

you suck all the open blood that’s right there. If you

go on like this, no more blood is going to come. Then

you immediately put a band-aid on. A band-aid

actually has three protections—a box, a wrapper, and

a little strip of paper on it. Once I got such a large

cut that I needed a large band-aid to cover it. 2

18%

5 Harmful germs can get into your body

in three ways, through your nose, your

mouth, and by cuts and scratches in

your skin.

Why do germs get into your body in three ways? 2 21%

6 Harmful germs can get into your body

in three ways, through your nose, your

mouth, and by cuts and scratches in

your skin.

That’s true. Germs get into your body in three ways.

2

22%

7 No one knows for sure why the

dinosaurs died out. One theory is that

the smarter, quicker mammals

appeared and killed them off, perhaps

by eating their eggs.

I don’t really believe that because most people say

dinosaurs died because they got this really cold

winter and they all died off slowly. 3

34%

8 Harmful germs can get into your body

in three ways, through your nose, your

mouth, and by cuts and scratches in

your skin.

So when you breathe with your nose and you get

bacteria, if you eat something you get bacteria in the

food, and if you have a cut, bacteria just slides into

the cut. 3

35%