Reading is the responsibility of every teacher, not just the English teachers. Reading is a part of teaching each curriculum and is required for deeper learning and understanding. The author expresses the need for teachers to teach reading strategies in each content of class.
The author expresses two different types of readers: resistive, those who do not want to read but can, and word callers, those who are fluent at decoding but struggling with comprehension.
Many times, teachers will accidentally disadvantage a student because they recap the reading assignment in order to stay caught up in their material. However, this practice is well known to students and they take advantage of it instead of trying to read and understand the material. It will take lots of work to move away from this and help from all three parties: teacher, parent and student.
Teach students to construct meaning while they read. The author expresses deep concern for teaching students the knowledge and recall facts where better understanding comes from better construction. In some ways we need to stop hand feeding all the information but digest it through different strategies.
Reading is not decoding, the ability to sound out a word correctly and sound fluent during a passage is not true reading. It is only a fraction of it. True reading comes from comprehending the passage. This is most effective through constructing the passage into our realm of meaning.
The author gives several strategies from P. David Pearson's research:
1. They use existing knowledge to make sense of new information.
2.They ask questions about the text, before, during, and after
3. They draw inferences from the text.
4. They monitor their comprehension.
5. They use "fix up" strategies when meaning breaks down.
6. They determine what is important.
7. They synthesize information to create new thinking.
8. Add sensory images (Ellin Keene and Susan Zimmermann)
Expecting Students with lower comprehension to read a text is useless and a waste of time because they do not get anything out of it. If you want them to get something out of it you need to model good reading. Allow yourself to read and find new exciting reading material in your content, showing the students your ability to love your subject. Model for them good and useful strategies.