Blog Post 9 – Cris Tovani’s I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

            I love-love how Tovani offered numerous ways to identify the marks of good readers.  For example, good readers “monitor their comprehension” and “ask questions about the text before, during, and after reading” (p. 17).  By Tovani’s definition, I am a good reader even though I hadn’t ever labeled myself as such.  I have taken my being a good reader for granted, perhaps like many of us do.  Struggling readers, however, have constant reminders of their deficiency by not understanding what they read.

            Tovani said she was surprised by students like Luke who said, “When I get stuck, I quit reading” (p. 49).  How disconcerting it is that struggling readers feel they have no tools at their disposal to help them.  Tovani wondered if Luke’s comment could have been stemmed from laziness.  In my students, I saw both laziness—a lack of interest to act—and apathy—a lack of emotions to act.  Their sense of hopelessness was profound, which is understandable because reading can negatively affect every aspect of our lives.

            Like Tovani experienced, some of my adult students told me they were good readers but had “trouble with comprehension” (p. 17).  Those are contradictory terms that I didn’t think to discuss with them at the time.  I will do it in the future.

Poor readers too readily “accept their confusion” when they’re not understanding what they read (p. 36).  However, one of my students—“James”—decided at age 56 that he wanted to read better.  He enrolled in an adult ed course in reading.  Until then, he’d accepted both his inability to read well and understand what he read.  James’ newfound knowledge changed him.  He began slowly with first- and second-grade texts, but then began to seek out more difficult texts.  Within a year, he was able to read at a fifth-grade level.  His boss at the paper mill noticed his progress and gave him more responsibility which came with a higher salary.  When I last saw James, he was comfortably reading at a seventh-grade level and always on the lookout for more reading material.