The Art of Modelling: Thinking Aloud

Helping children hear the expert thinking behind knowledge, concepts and processes

Jun 29, 2025

💡 The Big Idea

One of the most powerful ways we help children learn isn’t by showing them the polished final product, but by letting them in on the thought process bit: the thinking behind it.

Again, as Oliver Caviglioli says:

‘Students don’t need to see how intelligent you are. They need to know how you became intelligent.’

Thinking Aloud, or as the EEF put it, “making metacognition visible”, is a strategy that lets us show how we make decisions, wrestle with options, and adapt when things go wrong.

🧠 Why Thinking Aloud Works

For children still building their schema, who are still figuring out how to approach a maths problem, infer from a text, or craft a strong opening sentence, hearing an expert narrate their thinking helps them see the thought behind the process. It’s not just what to do, but why and how.

The EEF blog highlights that think-alouds support metacognitive knowledge by helping pupils understand the goal, the strategies available, and why one might be more useful than another. Bradford Research School add that without care or planning, a think-aloud can easily become a ramble. And they’re right, there’s a fine line between modelling thinking and just talking out loud.

That said, while it’s important to plan your thinking aloud carefully, especially when you’re new to it, that doesn’t mean scripting every line. In reality, that’s not sustainable. The key is clarity and timing. Knowing what thinking needs to be made explicit is important. Identify the moments in your lesson where decision-making matters or when student decision-making isn’t where you want it to be, and so you need to improve it. You’re not planning a full speech; you’re spotlighting the specific expert thinking that pupils need to see.

🎯 Let’s Break It Down: What Good Thinking Aloud Sounds Like

Thinking Aloud isn’t one technique. It looks different at different moments and in different subjects. It can be scripted or spontaneous, verbal or visual, whole-class or one-to-one. Sometimes it’s built into a model. Sometimes it’s a passing line of feedback that stops a misconception in its tracks.

Here are a few ways great teachers use Think Alouds:

🔍 Justifying Choices

When you explain your reasoning aloud, you’re giving pupils access to the decision-making process that usually stays hidden. It’s not just about the end result, it’s about showing how you weigh options, test ideas, and make strategic choices.

“I’m going to use a short sentence here to build tension…”
“This method is less messy and it helps me spot the pattern.”

This is especially powerful in writing and problem-solving tasks where there’s more than one right way to do things. You’re showing that expert thinking involves judgment, not just recall or a process.

😅 Dealing with Mistakes

Modelling how to deal with mistakes is useful too. A Think Aloud that acknowledges an error and walks back through the thinking of how to recognise and correct these builds internal feedback loops.

“Oh! That didn’t work. Let me go back and check where I went wrong.”
“I thought this would be the fastest way, but it’s not working, let’s try something else.”

This also builds resilience, classroom culture and shows pupils how to respond productively when their first attempt doesn’t work out.

🧭 Navigating Uncertainty or Cognitive Overload

There is a self-regulation to this one. Many primary pupils can freeze at the first sign of ambiguity or intimidating tasks. For example, large amounts of text or unfamiliar problems. Thinking Alouds give them a way into how to approach this. When you model the wobble, pausing, re-reading, trying again, you’re normalising the fact that thinking and learning is messy.

“I’m not sure what to do next… let me reread the question and think it through.”
“I could go this way or that way… what would make most sense?”

This is especially useful in open-ended tasks or multi-step problems where the path isn’t obvious.

📚 Bridging to Prior Knowledge

Sometimes, the best thinking aloud is just making a connection to what has been taught previously. Whether it is referring back to a previous piece of work or a previous method, verbalising explicit links to prior learning builds connections.

“This reminds me of what we did last week…”
“We used this strategy when we did multiplication. Let’s try it here.”

This helps children build schema by linking new learning to what they already know. It’s about sticking knowledge to existing knowledge.

🚫 Addressing Misconceptions

Think Alouds also give you a chance to surface and tackle common errors before they happen. You might deliberately talk through a misconception and then correct it, to model the thought trap and how to avoid it.

“It might be tempting to just add these numbers together, but that would only work if they were the same units…”
“You might think this is a story because it starts with ‘Once upon a time,’ but actually it’s a recount, here’s why.”

This is powerful for shaping attention and steering learners away from inaccurate thinking before it crops up.

🎬 How to Plan It (Lightly)

You don’t necessarily need a script, although one might help when you first start creating Think Alouds. A few sentences or notes might do. Think about the key points in your lesson where your thinking could be helpful:

Where’s the cognitive load heaviest?
Where might pupils get stuck?
What expert decisions do you make that are worth making visible?

Then focus on just one or two moments to think aloud clearly and slowly. As you get more confident, it becomes second nature, just part of how you teach.

🎯 A Timely Think Aloud

Finally, it is worth noting that you don’t need to do all your modelling, narrating, and thinking aloud in one go. Trying to do everything at once can overload the kids and you. Sometimes you just want pupils to see the steps first. No over-talking, no extra information, just the process laid out clearly. Other times, the focus may be all about the thinking, the ‘why’ behind the ‘how’.

The best lessons often shift between modes: a crisp, step-by-step model followed later in the lesson by a quick narrated version midway through a task to address something pupils are struggling with. You might not even know what needs a Think Aloud until you see what children get stuck on. Then you can jump in with a short, targeted Think Aloud focused on that bit of the process.

So don’t feel you have to bundle it all together. You might model fluency first and only add the Think Aloud later to unpack the trickier parts.

🧠 The Bits That Stick

✅ Thinking Aloud makes invisible decisions visible
✅ It supports metacognition and builds schema
✅ Plan your moves, but stay flexible and responsive
✅ Use it to show how you became an expert, not just that you are one

In a bit,
Coops 😎