There's More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

I watched as a blatant look of uneasiness crept upon his face. I could not for the life of me understand why. We do this every day. Nothing changes. Had he always been this uncomfortable? His forehead glistened with nervous sweat. I must admit, I usually daydreamed after I had participated and done my part. However, today’s chapter was something I was especially interested in. I intently studied his behavior, wondering if anyone else had caught on to how he was feeling. Finally, it was his turn. Apprehensively, he turned the page and began to read. I now understood why he displayed such behavior as he struggled to get through the paragraph. The others appeared frustrated as he stumbled and stuttered over words that they believed he should have known. The teacher looked on him with pity and would try to help him move along to no avail.

In retrospect, I understand why my classmate did not do so well in history, or any subject for that matter. He could barely read the material, much less comprehend what the text was saying. Now that I am becoming an educator and thinking like a teacher, I realize more than ever the importance of teaching children how to read whether it be directly like one might find in a Reading or ELA classroom, or indirectly through “noncognitive factors” that could be observed in other content area courses (280). An extremely important teaching strategy is to give the students texts that they can successfully read with my classmate being the perfect case study. 

I am falling in love with the Think Aloud strategy. It is a way whereby instructors are able to teach excellent reading skills without the students being aware of what is taking place. It helps to break down the text and, in my opinion, unpack the student’s thinking process. This also helps teachers to understand how much the children comprehend and models how to break down what students may deem overwhelming at first glance. 

In this technology driven era, it is imperative that educators step outside of the box and implement strategies that will captivate the attention of their pupils and almost subconsciously instill the reading skills that are necessary. The textbook notes that, “Effective teachers help struggling kids by modeling their own mental processes as they read, rather than just exhorting students to do something they don’t know how to do” (283). In addition to modeling one’s own mental process while teaching students to read, I would use other schemes and devices such as podcasts, videos, tapes, and games. By implementing these strategies, the kids are listening to fluent readers and getting all of the necessary information. This way, they will be interested in learning the material because it is more than words on paper in a book that probably means nothing to them. 

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