Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Great Book for Teachers June 26, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
We are all reading teachers. We must teach the students to read so they will be able to succeed in all subjects.
This book has strategies for all teachers. The author makes some good points when describing an encounter with an industrial arts teacher who said, "students don't have to read in my class."
This book will show you how to make connections in your subject area to reading.
If you teach a student to read, they can do anything.
Amazing May 15, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book really speaks to the reader and teachers. Cris Tovani is very hilarious when makiing comparisons to other subjects and students. This book is a must have for teachers that experience the hardships of trying to get students read with a purpose.
 A good idea, but... May 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I recently reviewed Subjects Matter, which is the same basic concept of this book. I feel the same about both books. I was assigned both books while obtaining my teaching certificate in college. They have useful strategies for helping student learn to read different types of books but the authors assume the teachers have extra time in class to teach these tactics. Unfortunately, most high school teachers are hampered by the amount of information to teach in their subject areas that it is difficult to implement the books' suggestions. Teachers can help those students during tutoring which makes the books useful.
I believe these books are great for middle school teacher who are not under the TAKS test deadline as in high school, especially 11th grade teachers.
 reading teacher January 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I teach a reading class for strugglers and I found "I Read it But I don't get it" to be a GREAT resource for teaching strugglers. Maybe this book is better for on level readers and their teachers?
Practical Strategies to Improve Reading November 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For someone looking for some practical strategies to help struggling readers make progress, there isn't a better place to look than this book. Tovani provides a number of strategies along with templates and appendices to help teachers put her ideas into immediate practice. And the strategies are good ones that should provide help to teachers, something too often sorely lacking in these kinds of books.
Tovani is also an excellent writer who provides a number of inspirational anecdotes from her own teaching and workshop experience. She writes about how her strategies can be used in a variety of curricular settings because, in this world of "writing across the curriculum," teachers in every subject area need to be able to address reading issues. And many of her anecdotes illustrate the "push back" we often see from teachers who feel this is just another thing they're being unfairly asked to do.
If there is a weakness in her book, it is that she doesn't show how to make that important transition from a reader who needs these strategies to a reader who has internalized these strategies and become a good reader. It seems from her approach that college students and young people working their first jobs are going to be pulling out double entry diaries and the like to help them interpret what they have to read. This is unlikely, of course, but it isn't clear from Tovani's work how to wean students from her strategies and what to do if good readers rebel against using them since, for good readers, this constant use of graphic organizers and so on could interfere with their joy and success in reading.
Still, the struggles that many students have with reading makes a book like this useful and necessary as do the struggles that many teachers have helping their students improve their reading skills. Tovani clearly knows what she's doing and her work is a great asset to those of us trying to improve instruction.
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