Sometimes I forget that I know anything special, anything different from what others know. One day this last summer, I had a chance to just sit and talk with a colleague here. We hadn't worked together for very long, and we certainly hadn't yet worked very closely on anything related to reading or instruction. It started out as a rather mundane conversation about leveling and reading assessments; but, geek that I am
, I started talking about miscues and cuing systems and how reading works. At one point, I realized that I had gone on for probably too long, and I apologized. "No," she said. "Tell me more." So I did. "This is really important stuff. I'm so glad to learn about this. I wish everyone got to hear you speak about something that you have studied so passionately."Tell me more. It's the truest expression of deep listening. I understood at that moment that she was deeply engaged, that she valued what I knew and was sharing, and that I did indeed have something unique to offer.
One of our Adult Basic Literacy staff had the opportunity to substitute teach in the Reading & Understanding class this week. They were working on a really difficult and complex wordless book. As they read the pictures, the students shared what they were seeing and created the story together. One student pointed at a picture and made an inference that the man was writing a letter to send overseas to his family. She knew he had left his family and was traveling to a new land. The other students and tutors, though, recognized that the man was getting his passport stamped. The tutor gently asked, "Tell me more about the picture. What caused you to say that?"
"See the paper he's using? And the stamps on it? It's like that thin paper you use for writing letters to people in other countries. And there's a typewriter back there, too, see?"
Tell me more. With just this invitation, not only was the student valued in her knowledge and ability to use evidence from the text to back her thinking, the tutors were also able to recognize a gap in her knowledge-passports, with which she had no prior experience.
My older daughter was working, rather reluctantly, on her physics lab report last week. I had offered to type it for her, but I couldn't quite understand her conclusion. She needed an example from her daily life as an extension. She had something about the car at the red light, but it wasn't very clear. "Tell me more about acceleration," I said, and started to draw out the story. "Um hmm, um hmm...tell me more." As she went, she worked it out, and I started typing furiously.
Tell me more. It says, "I believe you have it within you. I believe it's worth listening to. I believe you know more than you think you do!"
For more ideas on using these simple words to monitor your learners' comprehension and to break down barriers, see the
Choice Literacy blog. 
