I Read It, But I Don't Get It

"I Read It, But I Don't Get It" by Cris Tovani covered a wide range of strategies to use to help students comprehend what they have read. There were many lessons in here directed at teachers to make sure that students get the most out of reading. One of the most important lessons I took away from the book, which was at the very beginning and carried through the strategies was to not let the students give up on their reading. Even if I am teaching senior English, it is never too late for students to get a better understanding of what they read or learn to read in a way for the that works. If I had a teacher with this strategy, I may have comprehended my Science classes better and gotten better grades in my classes even in college. Students may think there is no hope for them past a certain point, but this book shows that there are plenty of ways to help students learn to read and learn to love reading.

Another important lesson that Tovani taught teachers was the importance of modeling. It is one thing to just say "read between the lines" or "think while you are reading," but you are going to get more from students if you model what you are actually asking for. The more you model examples for the students on how something should be done, the more likely they will do it the correct way and then learn from it how they should. Like Tovani says, teach the student don't teach the reading to the students. I ran into this issue in my high school classes when teachers would tell me to "actively read" an article or a textbook. That could mean a variety of things to students who had not been properly taught to actively read something. My junior year English teacher actually modelled how he wanted his students to actively read, and that made all the difference in the world for me not only in that class but for all of my other classes where teachers didn't explicitly say how they wanted teachers to "actively read."

There were so many good strategies and exercises to use with students it would take too much time to talk about them all. But, some of my favorite ones were for a teacher to anticipate where students would struggle with reading and plan strategies to help them overcome those problems, the double entry diary to prepare them for more involved active reading, knowing the voices in your head (I can't tell you how many times I have read a page of something and realized I didn't comprehend any of it and had to reread), strategies for when students are stuck on a reading, and connecting reading to background knowledge. I definitely plan to implement this book and the strategies in the back with my students whenever I get the chance to do so or where I think it is needed to help y students be able to say "I read it, and I get it."