Reading Reflection #5: Chapters 5 & 6 Tovani

The main themes from these chapters are when assigning reading assignments, you must ensure that students understand their purpose for reading in order for the reading activity to be successful and you must reassure that when students are reading that they have tools for holding thinking in order for them to remember their thoughts and reuse them later. Chapter 5 goes into detail on how to define the students' purpose for reading before diving into the material. It compares and contrasts the difference between the different voices a good reader experiences when reading (reciting voice and conversation voice), which are heavily centered on whether or not there is some sort of constructed meaning that grabs the reader's interest. It also investigated the notion of using a comprehension constructor to guide students through thinking about text; however, this was further developed in chapter 6. One idea that I thought was interesting from chapter 6 is "they have been taught that it is the teacher's job to ask questions and the students' job is to answer them" (pg. 68). Thus, it is important to teach students several tools they can use to hold onto their thinking so they can use it later. One major focus was how to effectively write down notes while reading. Either you have students write in their book or on some sticky notes, but which every route your students decide to journey down it is important for them to construct some sort of meaning. This once again ties back into the idea that you must set a purpose for students to read prior to assigning them a reading assignment. I am slightly concerned about how I can implement these into a math class because a math textbook is not the most interesting reading. Although the book does mention that not every time a student reads is for fun (sometimes we have to reading boring factual information), I still think that my students would be stuck with their reciting voice and not tap into their conversation voice when reading. However, I would like to incorporate this into my classroom because I agree that it is important for students to learn how to read boring stuff before they go to college.