I Read It But I Don't Get It

Cris Tovani's book I Read It But I Don't Get It was extremely enjoyable to read. I found myself flying through this book. One of the first things I really appreciated about Tovani was that she was very real within her text. She addressed the needs of students and what to do about reading comprehension among adolescents in an extremely straightforward way. One thing that I took from this book is that confusion is a good thing. I had one high school teacher who wanted us to be confused with the texts we read in class. She made sure that we knew that being confused and being wrong was okay. This continues to be the high school class that I always look back to and will shape my future classroom like. I will definitely be implementing Tovani's strategy in the very beginning of this book which asked students to pick or draw some books that have been important to them in either a positive or negative way. I think by doing this, students begin thinking about their reading history and can reflect back on their reading journey. Tovani also has students make two column notes. One note strategy I really liked was when she talks about having students write down quotes from the book and what they think of this quote. They could either write why it was confusing, why it matters, or if it reminded them of something. I think this is a great strategy to implement into any classroom. This would work great in a low level class or a high level class. I loved all of Tovani's anecdotes about her students. This made the book so much more authentic. I think my favorite story was right at the beginning when one of Tovani's more rough and tough students came to the front of the class and shared his pony book that his grandma had read to him.  I really enjoyed how this book addresses all types of readers. It addresses points with the low level an high level readers and gives strategies that are universal. I definitely have books that I've read that I have hated due to not being able to understand the text. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is one of the first that come to mind. I think if I would have had these strategies and could mark in the text where I was confused or bored, I would have liked the book more. This book gives great ways to get all types of readers to begin to like reading again. I will be keeping this book and referencing back to it often when I feel stuck in the classroom and don't know what to do with those readers that just don't like reading.