I read it, but I don't get it

At first, I thought that this book was going to be about a teacher’s personal experience in a classroom. Something that surprised me was how Chris Tovani mentioned how she talked about how to cheat on a book report. It’s something that I’ve done and as a young student those were things I hated to do, and it’s something that I didn’t want in my classroom. I found it comforting that I’m not the only one with this opinion. I felt like Tovani’s approach was showing her students that she’s human too. I felt like this was constant throughout the book. To show students where we get confused, what emotions we feel when we’re reading, and how sometimes we need to use the “fix-up” strategies when reading.

I struggled with comprehending what I was reading, even if I had just read something, sometimes I could tell you what it was about. What I couldn’t tell you is what the text meant to me or how I comprehend the text. Something that I didn’t realized existed was the cue systems, fix-up strategies, and the conversational and the reading voice.

It was almost like an epiphany reading about the conversational voice and how it’s important to use it when reading but can cause a reader to wander. I do this often when reading, whether it be an assignment or a leisurely read. I didn’t realize that this was a reason that I couldn’t comprehend or remember parts of the text after I just read something. I liked the idea of stopping and using a fix-up strategy to refocus on what I’m reading.

·         Make a connection between the text and: your life, knowledge of the world, or another text.

·         Make a prediction

·         Stop and think about what you’ve already read

·         Ask yourself a question and try to answer it

·         Reflect in writing on what you have read

·         Visualize

·         Use print conventions

·         Retell what you’ve read

·         Reread

·         Notice patterns in text structure

·         Adjust your read rate: slow down or speed up

Something that I liked about reading this book was feeling like I can be human in front of my students. When reading aloud, I look forward to stopping when I’m confused, or when something appeals to an emotion or resonates with me, then showing my students how I solve my problem. I like the idea of having the opportunity to mess up in front of the students because it will break down the teacher-student barrier that I felt throughout High School.

A challenge that I think I’m going to have is making all my students into good readers and what a good read entail. I felt like the book kept reading what made a good reader, but it also said that throughout the entire book and changed things up every now and then. So my definition based on what I’ve read is: a good read can comprehend the text that they’ve read, and can identify when things become confusing and/or something resonates with them, and know how to use a fix-up strategy if need be.