Week One: Chapter 2 Creating Independent Readers

Beers points out in chapter 2 of When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do that as teachers we often assume that by improving a student’s reading skills they will want to read. Through working with students she has realized that “simply improving the cognitive aspects of reading (comprehension, vocabulary, decoding and word recognition) does not ensure that the affective aspects of reading (motivation, enjoyment, engagement) will automatically improve” (pg 13). I think that teachers want to believe that by giving students the necessary tools they will want to read on their own. After all it is every teacher’s dream to motivate students to read for pleasure outside of the classroom. We want to make students lifelong readers.

However, to do this we must help the struggling readers which Beers believes “there is no single template for… because anyone can struggle given the right text” (pgs. 14-15). I agree that too often teachers assume the struggling reader is that student slumped down in the back of the classroom with their head down. In reality anyone can be a struggling reader when given a certain text. As Beers points out “the struggle isn’t the issue; the issue is what the reader does when the text gets tough” (pg. 15). I related to Beers’ connection of struggling when she read Beloved because I can recall struggling through texts during my undergraduate studies in college. In particular I remember having a difficult time reading Women In Love by D.H. Lawrence. Similar to Beers I struggled as an independent reader but I was able to finish the book because I have strategies that I use to get through a text on my own. I think students do not realize that their teachers can also be struggling readers and I think it is important for a teacher to have a conversation with their students about it. The students need to know they are not alone in their struggle and that there are strategies they can learn to become independent readers. It is not very often that we find independent readers in the classroom and as Beers states “my goal is to move dependent readers toward independence” (pg. 16).  In order to create independent readers students need to learn to depend on themselves instead of an outside source, like the teacher, to help them.