I Read It, But I Don't Get It

“Readers of tomorrow must do more than memorize words. They must be prepared to analyze, validate, and ask the next logical question. They have to know how to think.” Though it was at the end of the book, this quote stuck with me. Many students today only “read” when they have to. The kind of reading they are used to doing on a daily basis is posts on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Although students are technically reading, they aren’t gaining or exercising any reading skills. Students need to be able to comprehend what they read, analyze it, and relate it to real life. Students won’t get this through reading tweets. This book had a lot of great ways to get students thinking about their reading and increasing their comprehension, as well as teaching them valuable reading skills.

Another concept of the book I liked is that you can’t just tell a student that they have to infer: you have to teach them how to make inferences. This could be an entirely new concept to many students, so telling them to make inferences is telling them to do something they don’t know how to do. It’s important to walk students through the process of making inferences the first few times, showing them how to scour the text to find the information they are looking for. They need to be taught how to connect the dots. This is a learned skill, not something teachers can simply tell students to do without any prior instruction.

I also like modeling for the students good reading skills. One thing Tovani did that I liked was continue to read even after students enter the classroom. This will show students how enjoyable reading can be, as the teacher doesn’t just put it down in the middle of a page. Students often model after their teachers, and reading would be a great thing to pick up. Also, it leaves me, as the teacher, more time to read.

A huge part of this book is opening students’ eyes to things that they didn’t know they know. Tovani asked students to do several things, and many students responded “I don’t get it.” However, after some prompting, the students ended up realizing that they know more about the concept than they thought they did. All students need some times is a little push to be able to understand the concept.