Tovani- Chapter 6

February 2^nd, 2012
Tovani- Chapter 6

Chapter six started off talking about sharing your thoughts when reading. The teacher showed the students a picture which prompted them to “read” the picture and put their thoughts out there. The kids used reading strategies like asking questions when the saw the picture. She used this to help ease them into discussion and thoughts while reading text. She stresses the importance of thinking while reading. It is important to get a response from the students. The author talks about marking the text. She encourages the students to underline and make brief notes about things that they are reading. She warned about struggling readers and the front they put on to mask their difficulties. In cases like this it is important to hold the readers thinking. This is where tools come into play. The use of highlighters and stick it notes can help with encouraging thinking. But, they must be used in moderation because otherwise it becomes too much. Doing whole group discussion is a very beneficial tool as well because students can feed off of each other opinions and ideas, which can be a motivation for some students. The use of comprehension constructors is also very important because it helps students name their thinking and make it visible. They can also be used in other classes as well.

This chapter had a lot of good tips to use in and out of the classroom. It gave me a lot of knowledge about how to keep kids engaged and thinking while they are reading. I like the idea of group discussion, because when everyone is sharing their idea about what they read it really helps to motivate kids to think about the reading in ways that they hadn’t. I also like the idea of using stick it notes and highlighters. However, I agree that if they are not used correctly you really get nothing out of using them. This is why it is important to help kids to narrow down their thoughts and keep it all organized

The strategies I used while reading this text: highlighting main ideas, made a connection, took notes.

　

Citations

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension, grades 6-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.