I Read It, but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers

by Cris Tovani

I Read It, but I Don't Get It is a practical, engaging account of how teachers can help adolescents develop new reading comprehension skills. Cris Tovani is an accomplished teacher and staff developer who writes with verve and humor about the challenges of working with students at all levels of achievement—from those who have mastered the art of "fake reading" to college-bound juniors and seniors who struggle with the different demands of content-area textbooks and novels.

Enter Cris' classroom, a place where students are continually learning new strategies for tackling difficult text. You will be taken step-by-step through practical, theory-based reading instruction that can be adapted for use in any subject area. The book features:


anecdotes in each chapter about real kids with real universal problems. You will identify with these adolescents and will see how these problems can be solved;
a thoughtful explanation of current theories of comprehension instruction and how they might be adapted for use with adolescents;
a What Works section in each of the last seven chapters that offers simple ideas you can immediately employ in your classroom. The suggestions can be used in a variety of content areas and grade levels(6-12);
teaching tips and ideas that benefit struggling readers as well as proficient and advanced readers;
appendixes with reproducible materials that you can use in your classroom, including coding sheets, double entry diaries, and comprehension constructors.
In a time when students need increasingly sophisticated reading skills, this book will provide support for teachers who want to incorporate comprehension instruction into their daily lesson plans without sacrificing content knowledge.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction, Professional Development, School, Reference, Textbooks

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cris Tovani writes I Read It, But I Don't Get It in this kind of patient adventure tone so that you feel like you're in Ms. Fritz's class, riding on the Magic School Bus. Her students who struggled to read were put into her Reading Workshop and felt things like, "It's too late for me to read" and I love how personal and professional Cris Tovani is, like how real she is when she describes her own reading history of fake-reading for classes up to the end of high school and feeling worried that she couldn't continue with this touching-the-surface style in college (YES, ME TOO, OMG re: Shakespeare) and then connecting/relating to her students with this information.

I've read so much about the writing process, like what happens when you write (you think), but less about reading (just Calvino's If on a winter's night maybe) even though I periodically feel concerned that I think more about thinking than thinking about things specifically. I want to read more books like this about people who catch up later than usual, or re-learn their learning to realize that subjects they struggled with were made inaccessible somehow, like this article on: "An experience with some able women who avoid mathematics.pdf".

Anyway, I definitely wrongly believed in college that smart people read things fast and got them the first time and I kept trying to figure out how to keep up with my required reading aka how do I SPEED-READ. But Cris Tovani is like, "no, you adjust to the level of difficulty in the text: slow down when it's hard, speed up when it's easy" and some things she writes seem like they should be "obvious" but I'm glad to see it stated so explicitly, such as:

+ book clubs & classes & just discussion: creating meaning together, making sense of the text together
+ tracking your confusion and distraction (lol: I enjoyed the parts where Cris or the students admit that their mind just wanders off, like the girl who read the word party and started thinking of the party she went to the night before)
+ two reading voices: the one that pronounces the words, the one that responds with thoughts & feelings & questions
+ asking clarification & pondering questions before, during, after your reading
+ lol @ outlandish student responses to text with no evidence and responding that it's their opinion, so it's untouchable re: its in/accuracy. I think I did this a lot in college. Not making good inferences and trying to look for it in the text but it's not there- - -

I feel inspired to be a reading teacher.

Cris Tovani concluded in 2000 that "Tomorrow's citizens face greater demands than ever before. The written word is no longer restricted to paper form. Children of all ages are being bombarded with information from the Internet and other electronic forms of print. The "E"-generation needs to comprehend more than ever before. Readers of tomorrow must do more than memorize words. They must be prepared to analyze, validate, and ask the next logical question. They have to know how to think."

Yes.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cris Tovani, herself once a struggling reader, provides some excellent advice. While not as good as Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading (but how many books are?), Tovani still provides plenty of good strategies for reluctant readers or those who read fluently but cannot decipher meaning.

[Shifting Phases · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readable, well-organized, persuasive, concrete... I loved this book. Unfortunately it is a giant catalogue of things I now realize I should be doing in my classroom, but was oblivious to. On practically every page I had a face-palm moment, realizing about my students, "oh, THAT's what they're doing." I knew nothing about teaching reading, but now I have some ideas and a bit of insight. My students have no problem reading newspaper articles or novels. But when trying to read their textbooks, all but one or two are at sea. Even when they know all the words, they can't make meaning out of them. I don't have the answers, but this book pointed me in the direction of a ton of questions. And they're not just questions about reading comprehension. I get the feeling they're about comprehension in general; in other words, some of this material is about teaching critical thinking and intentional learning.

Some things I want to hang on to for later:

"Word callers have mastered decoding... but often don't do well with tasks that require them to use the words they read... These readers feel powerless because the only strategy they have for gaining meaning is sounding out words." (p. 15)

"...he expects meaning to arrive immediately after he reads the words. He doesn't know good readers construct meaning. One day in class, Tim interrupts my lesson to accuse me of wasting everyone's time. He isn't interested in historical background knowledge. ... Tim spend the majority of the semester trying to change the way I taught. ... When confusion set in, Tim thought it was the teacher's job to fix it." (p. 16)

Rumelhart's Cueing systems that readers use to understand text: graphophonic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, schematic, pragmatic. (p. 18)

Why they can't make meaning: "Don't have the comprehension strategies, Don't have sufficient background knowledge, Don't recognize organizational patterns, Lack purpose." (p. 19)

Learning to find the purpose of the reading, from different points of view (an exercise) (p. 26)

How to model reading (p. 27)

How to mark text (p. 29)

Self-assessment: How to find your own confusion (p. 30)
- Pseudolearning: "they didn't recognize confusion until they had to do something with the information." (p. 33)


How to get unstuck (p. 46)
- how students conceal their lack of strategies by parroting the "right" answers (p. 50)
- Tovani's strategies (p. 51)

Double-entry diary note-taking system (p. 31 )

How to design a guided worksheet for a particular thinking strategy (p. 32)

I don't know anything about the topic (p. 67)
- Find connections to your experience: connecting to a movie isn't "cheating"! (p. 71)

If students are making connections just to finish the assignment, and not to improve their understanding of the reading (p. 73)

Making predictions (p. 75, 109)

Apathy (p. 80)
- is there an opportunity for them to choose the questions? If not, don't be surprised that they don't care.

Teaching students to question (p. 83)

Gradual release of responsibility (p. 84)

Teaching how to use sticky notes (p. 89)

Deciding when "rereading" is not going to help. (p. 93)

Substantiating your thinking (p. 98, 105)
- and why "opinions can't be wrong" might be false.
- what kind of evidence could support your point? Go looking for it. Now you are reading with purpose.
- What else could this mean? (build a counterargument)

All this thinking is slowing me down (p. 108)

Previewing (p. 109)

"Whenever an activity fails, it is because I haven't done enough modelling." (p. 82)

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the most useful, hands-on, honest approach for how to teach struggling readers how to become masterful, independent readers. I'm so glad I read (and will reread!) this important book. I used many of the strategies this year and was amazed at their power and purpose. Many of my ninth graders read The Odyssey with more focus and insight than I did! Yay! Everyone wins!

[Paige Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT and straightforward book of strategies to teach *reading* along with literature content to secondary students. Absolutely essential, highly highly recommend.

[Pedr0br2012]

I Just Can't Get Into Books
"Pedro you better stop playing video games and start to read books ,I'm not asking you to, I'm telling you." "But mom I can't do it, I tried yet, when I'm reading I have difficulties." The major issue here is that I just can't get into books. I read, but I can't focus. When I'm reading I skip lines, sometimes chapters. Different things pop’s up in my head . "When we got outside of the duke of the New York we viddied, by the man bar's long liothed window." This quote is from the Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. It was complicated for me to get a deep connection of what is coming up on the next paragraph, and what I just read before that. I wish that books would talk to me and I would find them more interesting.

First I always start off excited about a book. I read the cover, look for the name of the Author, find the year it was published, skim through and see if there are any pictures, I always start out good. But then that concentration quickly disappears. I start to skip lines, and sometimes I read the first paragraph of a chapter and then skip to the end. I drink a juice, I have a little snack on the side, I make sure I'm clean and wide awake, but it just doest't work for me. When I was reading the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain during my freshmen year, it was the most difficult book I ever read. I had to look it up on Spark Notes and read there what it was about, and what happen in each chapter so I could get a decent grade. I don't want to but i have to. It seems like a constant struggle in my self-conscience.

Often times when I'm reading a book, different things pops up in my head. Consequently, When I see a word that I'm familiar with I connect it to something else, like a song for instance. I start to sing without thinking that I have a book in my hand, my focus on the book runs away, and I find myself looking for the song on the Internet or on my ipod. The fact that my dad is miles and miles away from me doest't help me to concentrate either. Especially if I find a word that makes me think about him, it takes away my focus on the book. Many concerned thoughts jump into my head. I start to wonder about everything my dad have been trough, what is he doing at that exact moment, and if he is okay or not. I miss him a lot. This summer when I went to go visit him, its fair to say that I did not pick up a book at all.

Even more, I can't really comprehend what's happening in the book. When I'm reading and I see a bunch of pages without pictures, I get really bored and I just read without understanding what I'm reading. It's not interesting and does not connect to me. I read to myself, listening with my right ear, but it just goes right out through my left ear. I tried to read this book called A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and it says "He had unconsciously invented a game which brought his own athletic gifts to their highest pitch." When I read that my mind just zoned out and I started day dreaming. After hearing the words "game" and "pitch", every game that I ever played, and anything else about baseball that I can think of, just popped into my head.

Reading books can be hard for certain people. I'm not lying here. Everything I say is true, its happens to me. I can't focus, I skip chapters, and I can't concentrate. When I'm reading and I'm looking at a word that I'm familiar with, it makes me think of something else, and I don't even comprehend. I'm a sophomore now and I know it's not good to have the issue while I am reading a book. Recently I learned in history class, that to be a good reader we need to do public speaking and writing. I have good abilities to do both of them. The reason why I am writing this essay is to get interested in reading a book. So I can add the reading skills to my head , and connect them to my speaking and writing skills. Tell everyone how proud I am for gaining these skills and clearly tell them that my second language is English.

[Monica Hills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been teaching sixth grade for the past 16 years and there was nothing in this book that was new to me. All of the strategies she discussed were things that I have been doing with my students for years. However she did have a good list of strategies that I could share with my students. I already do them but it was nice to see them all written up. I also liked her example for how she teaches a purpose for reading. There were some helpful examples in the back as well. The other thing I liked was her explanation of inference and opinion . This is something that is difficult for many students. I would recommend this book for college students learning how to be teachers.

[Brandon Haskey-Valerius · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listen, there are good things here. But the book has two major problems: one, like many "go-to" teacher books of the era, it exists in a world of teaching that doesn't exist anymore, so some of the approaches feel impossible. Second, there is not nearly enough time spent on the "and so..." where you move students from strategy to the real meat and potatoes of whatever is being read. And I guess the book is solely about comprehension, but I found too many of the activities listed to be too simplistic and difficult to modify for a class of widely different reading levels. There is some limited explanation of what to do in such a situation, but not enough. Also, the book contains the r-word, which isn't great. The same page also has some vaguely racist language that is coded in other terms but, in modern contexts, sticks out like a sore thumb. The good stuff here should be taken- many of the great strategies work well- but this concept needs a major update.

[Michelle Stimpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read for any secondary teacher -regardless of the subject you teach. What do you do when students struggle to read the text you assign to them? This is a short, quick, practical guide for how to help students comprehend difficult text.

I also recommend it to any parent of a struggling reader.

[Trina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Initially, I read I Read It, But I Don't Get It over a decade ago. I loved it then and still adore this professional resource now. Cris Tovani reminds me that reading is so much more than decoding and pronouncing words - it's a complex process between the reader and what he or she is reading. Although this book is about strategy instruction in reading, Cris Tovani's message is more about giving students agency to make meaning for whatever they are reading - not just teaching students the strategy. She emphasizes that students need to know why and how strategies make students stronger readers. Through her writing, you can tell that Cris Tovani is such an honest and reflective practitioner, providing examples of how conversations and insights from her students have moved her forward in her own learning. In my opinion, she was one of the forerunners of how to clearly make her thinking visible through modeling to students (especially adolescent readers). For me, she is the kind of teacher I strive to be.

[Melissa Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m so glad I finally made the time for it! It gets 4/5🌟 from me due to it not having more concrete strategies I can immediately implement in my classroom. What it did have that I loved were stories of the author in action. She gave real examples and excerpts from her real students and their real struggles. She talked a lot about the workshop model, which I was fortunate enough to learn from her firsthand from my time in NKC schools. ❤️ She gave a ton of ways that good readers comprehend text and the way they interact with their reading. I’m excited to take her ways of thinking and conversing with students about their reading struggles into my classroom and that’s all you could ever want out of a teaching book in my opinion.

[Penny Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for one of my education classes. It wasn’t anything crazy but definitely showed me a lot about adolescent literacy and how middle/high school teachers aren’t only teachers of their content but also have to teach students to be literate in the content too.

[M.92103 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I read this when I was in grade school or at college.
Some great tools

[Lorna Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good practical book on teaching reading comprehension. I got a lot of good useable ideas on lessons to share with my students.

[Mr. Payeur DFTBA! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, well organized discussion of why many students struggle to read and a process of stategies to help struggling readers actually make meaning for themselves. Highly recommend to fellow educators or anyone who knows a struggling reader.

[Michael Loveless · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Read It, but I Didn't Get It is one of the best education books I've ever read. The title is a problem that I see every day in my classroom, and one that I've had pretty limited success addressing. I have had some success helping students understand how their textbooks are organized and helping them identify the importance of historical context, bias, etc. (I'm a social studies teacher and so these things are closely connected to the material I teach.) My problem is that I've had a harder time teaching the basics of reading comprehension. I guess I've been somewhat unconsciously competent as a reader and haven't been able to teach what I do without thinking. Cris Tovani lets the reader listen in on her classroom as she uses a variety of strategies to help her struggling high school students become better readers. Along with these classroom vignettes, she includes clear explanations of the techniques and why they work. I found the book full of simple but seemingly powerful techniques that I could use in my classroom immediately. I strongly recommend this book to any high school teacher who wants to help kids comprehend what they read.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

My district sent me this book because I work with struggling readers. I'd planned to take it home for the summer but it ended up in the wrong box. It took me a while to find it again so I'll probably spend some time re-reading.

It's a good book, filled with anecdotes. The strategies tend to be general but I like the way the anecdotes deal with both struggling readers and "successful" readers. After all, don't we all become struggling readers when we read a topic we are unfamiliar with?

I would recommend reading this short book in small doses, perhaps a chapter a day. That provides more time to digest and ponder what is being read. I wouldn't recommend breezing through it (a true temptation due to the brevity of the book).

[Rick Gilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book to be specific in its suggestions and helpful in supporting the classroom teacher's efforts in helping students experience success. Have you ever watched someone speak in English to a person who appears to understand no English? When the speaker realizes the lack of understanding how often have you seen them repeat what they said but just slower and louder? I really like the specific suggestions Tovani offers teachers, and readers, many ways to help "fix" the struggles they are experiencing with reading.

Cris has a couple of youtube video's discussing her work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ir43...
To check one out.

[Kellee Moye · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things I struggle with is think alouds and this book truly helped me with practical ways to improve my think alouds. Although I am already familiar with many of the comprehension strategies that Cris Tovani mentions in the book, I love the practical ways to incorporate them into the classroom. The only thing I found missing from this book is reading for fun.

[Shari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was honest, readable, and helpful. Tovani is forthcoming about mistakes she has made in the classroom and things that we all do in the interest of time and moving lessons along. I expect that this is a book I will return to over and over again in my career (or at least in these next couple of years).

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether you’re a parent facing the frustration of your child being unable to access texts properly or a teacher struggling to give the hundreds of kids you care about the tools to pick apart a difficult text or problem, this short and to the point read is instrumental.

Cris Tovani, a reading specialist and teacher, breaks down what may seem like the easy task of analyzing and questioning the written word. Good readers seem to do this naturally and it is often hard to describe how it is accomplished thanks to the ease in which it is performed. Unfortunately, for many of our struggling youth, it is not easy. In fact, it seems insurmountable. In this age of instant gratification and digital media, the upcoming generations give up quickly and find “easy” ways to get out of working through difficulties.

In a short 111 pages, Cris Tovani spells out the difficulties students tend to have with reading and literacy and provides simple solutions to build a bedrock, a foundation, for these struggles in grades 6-12. She makes it apparent that these tips and tricks are not so tricky and can be used in classrooms other than ELA and English. She also assures us that it’s never too late to learn these accessibility techniques, as she herself had to learn them the hard way in college.

Highly recommended as a resource for all!

[Wendy VanDellon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I was preparing for a presentation where I was expected to be an expert on reading techniques for college freshmen. Feeling like less than an expert, I picked up Cris Tovani's book from the university library. After reading the text, I have to say that I wish I had found this book ten years ago when I first started teaching.

Tovani interweaves her own personal classroom narrative while showing various techniques that she has used successfully with her students. By discussing the skills that good readers use, Tovani offers ways that we can show students how to employ similar tactics when tackling challenging texts. Additionally, I found the "fix-up" strategies incredibly useful to explain to incoming college freshmen because I remember my own difficulty reading and teaching myself material from textbooks when I entered college.

Tovani's push to encourage everyone to teach and interweave reading practices into the classroom is important and worthwhile noting. I also believe she is right.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ideas in here were not really new. I'm a Title I reading specialist and HS English teacher, so I understand the concepts of teaching comprehension. However, there's very few books and resources on teaching reading to older students. So, I got this book with the hopes that i would learn something new. If anything, it reinforced what I'm doing and pushed me to do some things more often/to a greater extent. I rated it 3 stars bc, if you don't have the reading degree and experience I have, this book could be quite valuable for you.
I need to write an adolescent reading book. Just saying.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seems dated now but it was a good review/overview for teaching reading for the first time in a long time. Notes in no particular order:
There are "resistive readers and word callers" who get by in class activities without actually reading for understanding themselves
Reading needs a clear purpose
As a teacher, love what you read and model how to read it
Introducing a text with inquiry--"I wonder..."--students generating questions rather than just answering comprehension questions
gradual release of responsibility
connecting textual evidence clues to make inferences

[Tiffany Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! She really knows her students and the strategies that help develop comprehension. I love how simple her strategies are; I feel like I could incorporate them into a lesson or build an entire lesson plan around them. The other thing I love about this book is that each chapter ends with a summary of the chapter's content and a "teaching point" which describes what "good readers" do which will be helpful as I present the strategies to my students.

[Daniel Buck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Positives first: some of the practical applications and activities were useful. Particularly, there's a chapter on how to teach question asking that was a delightful, useful read.

Negatives: I find her argument for choice reading and a 'skills-based' reading instruction unconvincing. Fluent reading is so much more than merely making inferences or connections. This workshop approach is fine in theory but studies have proven it to be ineffective in practice.

[Mr Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had some good insight because the title is me. Even as a teacher, I struggle and need to reread sections at a time. This book was explaining to me why I am the way I am for reading. I saw some early report cards and it wasn't always this way.
On a personal note, the author talks about working with students at a high school I competed against in basketball. Having that personal connection to the area the students were coming from helped me stay with it.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The skeleton of this text is instrumental for any ELA teacher. Even though it’s geared for the middle school demographic, the strategies are practical to be applied to mostly anyone. I’m definitely planning on using some of them for my unit plans in the future.

A bit redundant in the 2nd half of the text but still worth picking up for anyone not familiar with Tovani or with reading strategies.

[Kori Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this short textbook for my literacy class. It was interesting and dived deep into what happens when you don’t learn comprehension strategies as you read. High schoolers who can’t comprehend while they read often can’t do much else, and this really solidified for me how important it is to check in on your students and model comprehension strategies for them. Definitely pick this up if you’re a teacher!

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for any teacher whose content depends on students reading and constructing meaning from text. I picked up Tovani in preparation for a Reading Intervention class; I plan on using her strategies, lessons, and activities in all of my courses. This is the book we should have read in my literacy methods course.