I Read It, But I Don't Get It

The part of this book that stood out to me the most was the identification of different voices that a reader uses while... well... reading. I consider myself a strong reader and I find myself often making use of techniques such as the ones Tovani discusses, but I wasn't aware of the names they had before I read what Tovani had to say on the matter. The four voices are the interacting voice, the conversation voice, the reciting voice, and the distracting voice. I often find myself grappling with the distracting voice, usually when I'm tired. The fact that I generally read as I'm in bed may be a contributing factor. Of course, this predilection for wandering thoughts is what makes my job as a cartoonist possible. When I'm well enough engaged with a text, the other three voices make themselves known.
What's difficult for students, as Tovani recognizes, is that reading ability is its own sort of positive feedback loop. What I mean by that is that students who struggle to read are less likely to read more and thereby will fail to become better readers. However the opposite is also true--students who are good at reading are more likely to read more and thereby become better readers. It is a self-reinforcing system that we as teachers need to steer towards the latter rather than the former. By the time students end up in middle school or high school, they may have decided, either subconsciously or otherwise, that the content is either too difficult or too boring to even attempt. As Luke (in the book) said, "When I get stuck, I quit reading." It becomes necessary for teachers to make reading into something that's engaging and fun so as to avoid students utilizing online summaries or asking friends for what happened in assigned readings. We need to give students the tools to succeed. We can throw up our hands and say that "you can lead a horse to water," but we have the ability to give them a big ol' straw, too.