Read Alouds and Shared Readings

I really liked the fact that the chapter we read was based on read alouds and shared readings in the adolescent classroom, whereas, the article focused on the primary grades. I liked to see the similarities and differences (if there were any) between primary and high school grades using these strategies. The article, "Text Talk: Capturing the benefits of read-aloud experiences for young children,"  focused on "Text Talk," which is basically just an approach to read-alouds in which a student's ability to construct meaning from text is enhanced. I don't think I would have understood what the authors meant by "Text Talk" if they had not mentioned that it is very similar to Questioning the Author.The major difference is that Text Talk is aimed at read-alouds in the primary grades instead of independent reading in the intermediate and upper grades. The most interesting part of the article was the fact that students will sometimes rely too much on the pictures of a story for comprehension. I found this so interesting because I am currently experiencing this with a student. I now know from reading this article that I should wait to show this student the picture until after the student has answered any questions about that particular part of the story. I gained and was reminded of a lot of information while reading the article. The one aspect I did not particularly care for was that the article seemed very repetitive. I enjoyed the chapter, "Well Read: Promoting comprehension through read-alouds and shared readings," probably more than the article because first of all it addressed read-alouds and shared readings in all subjects areas. Second, it was also aimed toward adolescents which is a nice change since our other classes aim toward primary and elementary grades.   My favorite part of the chapter was how to successfully implement read-alouds and shared readings in all of the subject areas. I am a little nervous that I will not be able to focus on subjects like social studies if I cannot integrate language arts and social studies together. This chapter, the other chapters and the other articles that we have read have helped to ease the nervousness by providing great ways to integrate important language arts skills with other subject areas. The other part I particularly liked was that the chapter listed steps on how to plan and successfully implement read-alouds and shared readings into secondary classrooms.

Questions:

1. Why is it that read-alouds and shared readings are only recently researched and seen as beneficial in secondary classrooms?

2. Where can I find more information on comprehension with read-alouds and shared readings?