I Read It, but I Don't Get It Blog Post

In reading Tovani’s description of students who are struggling readers sometimes I thought to myself, that’s me! I loved this book! Tovani gives me so many tools for working with students who have issues reading (Fix-It Strategies, pgs 51-55) that I feel more prepared as a teacher. Not only does she connect with the reader by telling us stories of students in her class, their responses to reading but then in each chapter gives teaching points and a “what worked” section.

Tovani does a great job in the beginning of Chapter 3 with describing why the purpose of reading is so important. She explains just how to get the students to realize what reading with a purpose does to make their lives easier. On page 24 she lists reasons why students get distracted, which helps the teachers reading this book combat those by providing them purposes for reading. I also appreciated Tovani’s reading techniques she describes in Chapters 3 & 4 using the alternating pink and yellow highlighters. Then using the sticky notes for notations. This process all made great sense to me. The one idea I was hesitant about using was the coding. I would have to practice with it but seems it may be more work than simply making notations on the page.

Another section of Tovani’s book I found helpful was the information in Chapter 6 about connecting information between subjects and making connections with the text. Even in our class we’ve discussed the idea that maybe the texts students are reading are just too old. Maybe they can’t connect with some of the texts anymore. I think in a way that is true, but just like the subject of history; we can’t stop learning it because it is old. The need to have balance, as we’ve discussed before, will be upheld once students can more easily make connections to the text. I like the concept of background knowledge and always tying that into what the student is reading. She goes on to further break that down into personal experience versus personal knowledge. I think clarifying personal experience and personal knowledge will be beneficial to students when it comes their turn to display their background knowledge. And also to let them know that it’s okay to make connections to songs, movies, and past experiences. I can see how some students might think that is “wrong” or “cheating” in some way.

I could go on about other things I liked about this book, but this blog only has so much space J I found it to be a very helpful read with real-life suggestions for struggling readers, and it provides great tools for teachers.