Modeling reading

Chapter 3 in this book is titled "Parallel Experiences"; to me this title simply defines one of the key actions which Tovani continually states that would help us as teachers understand what it is to not understand a difficult text that we read, just like our students. Difficult readings for students often involve unknown vocabulary, boredom, and  their level of reading comprehension. As discussed in my previous blog, a good form of helping students understand certain terms within a reading is by prompting them to look up their definitions and related them to something they are already familiar with.
Addressing the issue regarding difficult contents of reading, Tovani advises teachers to exercise their abilities to comprehend difficult texts "...to see how I as a good reader would negotiate the difficulty" (pg: 29), as a way to put ourselves in the place of our students, and try to "...identify what they are struggling with" (pg: 29). This will create a deeper connection between student and teacher if we, as teachers, are capable of having empathy for the student in regards to their reading skills. Speaking of which, the level of reading of each student is different, and it is another important aspect that teachers should study in their selecting of text books. An example that Tovani gives was about one of the times she went to an English tenth-grade classroom to help them read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which she took up and read for herself before her lesson. This helped her see what certain problems her students could encounter and how she would go by to address them.
After having had the chance to read the book, Tovani was honest and said that the book was boring until she got to the "exciting" portion of it. This to her seemed very important as a goal to keep her students engaged in a difficult reading; she knew the book would be a tedious read for most of the students and that more than likely they would stop reading it after a few pages because of this. So in order to help find some sort of interest in the book, she decided to present them the pages where "...gory parts, as well as the evil monster's deed" (pg: 32) began to appear. She began her lesson by reading out loud and formulating questions that the students could relate to based on the reading, as a way to "model [her] thinking". Now from my perspective, this was a good step Tovani took to engage the students in their required reading, but what happened next proved to be, from my perspective, more of an important point for the students' reading comprehension skills.
After modeling her thinking strategy for a bit, she decided to pass on the reading to the students and asking them to continue with their own questions about the reading and write them down on a piece of paper. This allowed her to identify students that were struggling with the reading, as they weren't capable of computing any questions to ask. So then, Tovani advices teachers to be "...the best reader of the content they are teaching" (pg: 35).