I Read It, But I Don't Get It (2000) is full of anecdotes and personal testimony from its author concerning her struggles to get her secondary school resistive readers reading. She walks the reader through her initial interactions with students, their struggles with reading, and ways that she built a classroom community based on trust rather than "teacher-as-provider-of-knowledge." She also sprinkles teaching strategies throughout the narrative, and includes copies of handouts as appedices.
Tovani does a good job of showing the growing population of non readers, and provides strategies to (re)engage them with books. Unfortunately, she spends a lot of the text reminiscing about conversations or struggles she faced with particular students rather than providing effective teaching strategies. The ones that she does include are helpful and easily accessible; however, nothing in her book is profound. In fact, teachers who keep up on professional
development won't glean any new information, but this would be a great book to share with novice teachers.
Tovani does a good job of showing the growing population of non readers, and provides strategies to (re)engage them with books. Unfortunately, she spends a lot of the text reminiscing about conversations or struggles she faced with particular students rather than providing effective teaching strategies. The ones that she does include are helpful and easily accessible; however, nothing in her book is profound. In fact, teachers who keep up on professional
development won't glean any new information, but this would be a great book to share with novice teachers.