I read it, but I don't get it

I really appreciated this text for the practical uses it supplies.  Yet what stuck out the most to me, for the first time in all of the previous texts I've spoken of here, wasn't the practical side.  Instead I was struck by the constant need for explicit instruction.  I admit that somewhere inside of my brain I had already adopted the idea that by the time a student reaches high school, they should be capable of reading.  Page 20 says that "it's not that children haven't been taught to read in elementary school ... rather, reading instruction needs to continue after elementary school.  Reading instruction at the primary level focuses on decoding and reading with fluency.  Intermediate instruction emphasizes meaning and ideas in both literature and nonfiction."

This is a very new concept to me.  And throughout the book even the author admits that she is constantly being reminded that students do not enter her class with the knowledge that she thinks they should have; more aptly, they enter with only the information that they have been directly taught in the past.  These two ideas do not often parallel each other, or at least that is what Mrs. Tovani found in her years of teaching.

I admit to having laughed when Mrs. Tovani spoke of there being voices in her head, much like her students did.  Then I thought about it while I continued to read the text.  I heard the words as they were written on the page repeated in my mind.  Then I saw the movie that it created just behind that first voice.  And every so often a third voice would interject with an inference or question that I had about the text I was reading.  It was a unique experience for me to notice these aspects of my own mind.  I have always been a good reader.  I memorized books before I had actually been taught to read.  And I remember trying to read every single sign that I passed while driving in the car with my mother.  I got so good that I almost could read every sign.  And while I remembered this experience, I applied it to the subject of this book and realized that I was also making connections and inferences while I practiced.

In particular I remember a sign that we use to pass all the time.  I loved that sign.  It was a business called Baby Bumpers, Beds, and Britches.  And I thought it was a wonderful tongue twister.  When I first tried to read it, I would get all jumbled up (even just reading it in my head).  Then I got good at it.  Then I got fast at it.  And I would compare it to the tongue twister "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers."  I remember thinking the sign was a better tongue twister and I would look forward to going past it and reading it as quickly as possible.

I share this story because that is the premise of this book.  To go from sounding out words, to making connections with yourself and your knowledge, to understanding what exactly is happening within your thought processes.  I have a new appreciation for what exactly it is that I, as a good reader, have done all these years.  And though I have never really struggled with reading, I hope that I can still find a way to deal with the sullen "This is stupid"s and "I don't care"s in such a way that can nudge my readers forward into enjoying and understanding the art of reading.