Ch 4 Real Rigor: Connecting Students with Accessible Text

Tovani starts out the chapter with a story about how the students at her high school were failing thier U.S. History classes. Tovani then examined the textbook that was being used in that class and found the text book to be extremely difficult text. She soon went to the head of the department and asked him to order new books. He soon explained to her that were new books and they just spent thirty thousand dollars on them. He explained that they would have to do for the next ten years. So she tried to come up with an alternative to buying new textbooks. She soon introduces accessible text and what it is. It is text that fits or matches what you are trying to teach. You can find these in magazines, newspapers, or anywhere else that is short, well written and easy to read. Some people think this reading is dumbing it down and Tovani assures us that it is not. A teacher in her English department meeting exclaims to Tovani that he doesn't want to sacrifice rigor by giving easier text to read. This teacher is under the assumption that by having the more difficult texts the students will plow through it and learn more. What I feel he doesn't understand is that if the text is too hard the students will stop reading it and become discouraged.The result of this kind of discouragement can be seen in the U.S. History classes failing ratio. She later explains that you need to gradually build the student's reading up. Start them off at text they can understand and then give them harder and harder texts as they start to learn the stuff before. We are pretty much using scaffolding for our students in this way. Instead of just giving them the tools to build a bridge and telling them to go build it we are showing them each step as it comes. This is very important to all readers and especially to struggling readers. I found this to be true for myself as a reader as well. I struggled throughout high school and constantly tried to get out of reading the text. Once we were supposed to read a book and I ended up reading the first paragraph and decided that it wasn't worth my time. It was so boring and difficult. So I B.S.ed my way through it as I am sure most high school and college students do. But what did I learn? I am pretty sure that I got nothing out of that lesson. As an adult I started to read fantasy books and got really into this series. Soon I worked my way through this series and then I went on to read different types of text both easy and difficult. My reading and comprehension skills soared because I was able to want to read because of the content and I personally scaffolded myself to get me to a point where I am finally able to read difficult text that I never would have even finished the first paragraph of. I wish I would have had a teacher like Tovani in high school or even college. Even though I have progressed greatly since high school I still find some text very difficult. Our latest reading in this class is one of these texts that I am very discouraged with and having an extremely difficult time with. Tovani says, "If we don;t begin to find accessible text for all adolescent readers, they will continue to fail, only to become someone else's problem the following year. More students will become turned of by the content we love." (2004, p. 42) I have learned a lot about reading and comprehension to be able to help struggling readers that I encounter in the future. i will be sure to give text that they can understand and that challenges them at the same time.