Response to Tovani

The first thing that came to me as I read this book was that it seemed like it was very practical.  Most of the other texts we have read were all great insight and theories to teaching and methods, yet didn't seem like they were practical for all situations.  I really like how there were a ton of anecdotes in the story, it made it more of a better read rather than conjecture and theorizing.  The other texts seemed to lean on the "If...therefore" type of arguments.  Almost like they were trying to be logically correct more than practical.  Tovani gives practical insight and some really good ideas that I think could be useful in the classroom.

Chapter 1 hooked me right away when I saw the title was labeled "fake reading".  She really looks at who students are in terms of reading and quickly dispels the idea that just because students read that they comprehend.  She gave some great ways to chart the traits of effective vs. noneffective readers.  It is absurd to think that just because we as teachers make students read over and over again that they understand it.  Maybe there is osmosis at work.  The osmosis joke is worn out and I am sorry for using it. It was interesting that there are I imagine that students fake read all the time in order to get done with a task.  That arises some big questions like how do we get them to be engaged or is there a way to make it so they cant just fake read a document.It was also very neat how she described how she got her students how to open up to her about fake reading at the start of their classes together.

The chapter on types of struggling readers was interesting, breaking down the two types of resistive and word callers.  It is interesting that she noted that students can get by by using these struggling readers tactics but it will bite them in the end as they don't learn anything.  The last chapter was interesting too when it talks about getting students to be able to recognize their own reading habits.  It is something that I quite frequently overlook.  When I am reading and don't understand a passage, I will generally power through and forget about it once I get past it.  I think it is a very good idea to get kids to be conscious of their own reading and recognize what they are comprehending.  It is so easy to read something and forget about it.  This books makes me think twice about how easy it is to fake read texts just to finish them.  It will be interesting to try to combat that in the classroom and I hope the tools here will be a big help.