I Read It, But I Don't Get It

Reading through I Read It, But I Don’t Get It, by Cris Tovani, reminded me a lot of my dad and my journey as a young reader. My dad has always had trouble reading; he has always been good at reading texts like instruction manuals or magazines about something he is interested in, but I’ve never seen him sit down with a book and read it for pleasure (until just the other day when he asked to borrow my copy of Ready Player One). When I was young, I wasn’t as much of a reader compared to my classmates, and my parents were worried that I might end up not liking reading like my dad. Something clicked though, and I became a voracious reader; I’m still a voracious reader (when I have the time).

I think that the reading/thinking strategies that Tovani goes over in this book really stood out to me because they make me think of how my dad could have used this when he was growing up, or could use them now, to become a better reader; they also make me think of many of the students in my practicum classroom who have been/are struggling with reading and comprehension. I want to be able to understand how to help my students become better readers by facilitating the use of these thinking/reading strategies.

I love that Tovani informs us how to help our students, help ourselves even, with reading and comprehension with such ease. I think my favorite section of the book is the “Fix It!” section that goes over the different “fix-up strategies” students can use to help them get unstuck while they are reading difficult material. I think that understanding the different ways in which my students can check their confusion and help themselves come to comprehend a text better is such an important thing, especially as an English teacher. I love that Tovani spells out how to utilize each “fix-up strategy” and goes further in the section to tell us how we can repair confusion. I definitely think that this section will be helpful for some of my students in my practicum classroom, and I would really like to see how the different strategies might help them with their reading.