Response to reading D&Z ch.1&2

          After reading chapters 1&2 of “Subjects Matter”, I can honestly say that I already think differently about teaching. Walking into this you figure, I like a subject and I’d really like to teach it. You know it’s going to be a lot of work and that eventually you’ll learn everything you’ll need to know and you’ll get there. When I actually sat down and read the two chapters I realized, oh my goodness this is it! This was my wake up call; I’m learning to actually do it.

           The very first topic in chapter one was Reading for Real. This section really puts things into perspective on how much reading is overlooked and forgotten. As a substitute teacher at an elementary, middle and high school, I hear teachers say all the time; “Weren't they supposed to learn this back at Martin?” (the elementary school). The authors bring up a good point that teachers think somewhere in elementary school students were shorted on phonics and that’s why they struggle with a textbook, aren't good readers or don’t like to read (pg 22-23). It’s interesting because even today I hear teachers mentioning the word phonics, but after reading this sections and remembering a thing or two from my anthropology class last year; phonics really has nothing to do with the problem with reading in schools. They explain how phonics is just the sound-symbol correspondence between spoken and printed language; basically sounding the word out. I really like how the authors dragged out the reading concept and explained how it’s an active process and went through the thinking strategies effective readers’ posses.
   
         It’s true because I can see it in myself. Myself, I consider myself a terrible reader. I read very slowly, and I have to reread things once or twice and to make sure it sticks, I have to read a section, go back and take some notes. This doesn't mean something is wrong with me, I just learn differently and take a little bit more time. The catch is that I had to be taught how to read and how to deal with the way I learn and go forward. My teachers taught me to take notes, how to choose which ideas were important and which could be left out. I had to be taught to read a paragraph, stop, gather my thoughts, and then write. I think this is the kind of reading the authors are talking about at the end of chapter one. That there really are two visions of reading, the first that is just the regular way of reading where you read and answer questions or you read real-life book, articles and stories that students can relate to and then do something fun with it. Like the students who learned about fast food and learned about how unhealthy McDonald’s food really is. These two visions are really two different approaches to teaching reading. The first is generic and simple but it doesn't provide meaning. The second approach is all about differentiation; different reading materials, new tools, different assignments that all lead to one concept or theme.