While reading chapter two, I realized something- Would I have passed my tenth grade chemistry class if I had become an independent reader when reading my chemistry book?
When I thought about this, I wondered if with some materials we're dependent, and others we're independent. I know that I always hated reading my math book, science books, and even some of the literature I was forced to read in school. It was hard for me because I was uninterested and I found myself in George's shoes saying "I don't get it." However, I always read outside of school; I was interested in novels, poems, even my cell phone manual, but because I knew I could get something out of these books. While I didn't care why I needed to know chemistry, I knew that I could change settings on my cell phone because I read the manual or receive the pure feeling of enjoyment from reading a novel.
I knew how to read, and I could understand what I read, but for me it was a matter of me wanting to read it. I find myself as a teacher (and a girlfriend) facing this problem with my boyfriend. I have a book I want him to read, that I know he'll enjoy, but he tells me how he hates reading because it's too hard. Does this mean that he's a dependant reader? I found myself asking him the same question that Beers brought up, "Have you ever tried to find a good book?" and I get the reply that books are boring. This brought me to the chart on page 18. The chart shows that when someone lacks social and emotional confidence in reading they cannot read for enjoyment. So I've come up with a challenge: I hope to continue reading and learn how to boost my boyfriend's confidence in his reading and maybe he'll pick up a book on his own and read!
Hey CJ! That sound like quite the challenge, but yeah I know what you mean its hard for people who maybe didn't read a lot in high school to suddenly take an interest in reading. I also found myself asking a lot of the same questions you were and I just keep telling myself if I knew then what I know now, things, such as my grades and interests, might be completely different then they are. Good luck with your boyfriend can't wait to see how things turn out.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think you can be an independent reader for some texts and a dependent reader of other texts. In fact, even though I love literature, there are some pieces of difficult text that I still have to struggle through and work to read. I think we have to realize our students might be the same way... when I taught an AP humanities course, the social studies teacher was using a very difficult textbook - these were AP students, but they still struggled with the text.
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