Final Reflection

I enjoyed this class a lot. It was different from most of the courses that I've had to take toward my special education licensure. It reminded me so much of why I majored in English during my undergraduate work. Reading is something that has always been important to me, and I want to share my love for reading with the students I work with who have special needs and often struggle when it comes to reading. My passion has become helping students who are struggling or nonreaders to become better readers. I learned so many useful strategies and ways of doing this throughout this semester. I loved the read alouds/book talks that Dr. Pytash took the time to do before each class. This is such a great strategy to use to help expose students to books that they might be interested in reading. I also think read alouds are great for struggling readers because it helps them to hear and see what a good reader looks like while eliminating some of the pressure they feel.
Finally, I think my favorite thing about this class is that Dr. Pytash modeled the strategies we were learning about and got us involved in using them. It's one thing to read about a strategy, but it's something entirely different to get to see and experience it.

Chapter 14: Finding the Right Book

Having been an avid reader my entire life, I've never given much thought to how I could help a nonreader "find the right book." I learned how to look at covers and preview a book in order to decide whether or not I wanted to read it. I have my favorite authors and the internet to help me find new ones. But, nonreaders don't think like I do. This is why the suggestions that Beers offers in Chapter 14 helped me to better understand how to help nonreaders or struggling readers how to find something that interests them.
From reading Chapter 14, I learned that many nonreaders like thin books with short chapters, wide margins, illustrations, well-defined characters, lots of action, and realistic language. They don't like to spend a lot of time trying to sift through tons of minute details. Nonreaders want to read something that is going to give them a lot of information in a confined amount of space. I liked Beers' suggestion of using a Read Aloud strategy to help entice nonreaders to read. I took a graduate level course where the professor read to us before every class. It was a lot of fun and really helped me to understand how important reading aloud can be, especially for students who didn't grow up in the literacy-rich environment that I grew up in.
I also thought it was interesting how few teachers take the time to take their students to the library. I was always at the library growing up, so I was frequently exposed to all the books I could ever want. Nonreaders don't have this experience and desperately need it. They need someone to introduce them to books and help them learn how to choose books they might enjoy reading.
Finally, I liked how Beers mentioned how important it is to know your students' interests. Simple interest inventories can help a teacher in a lot of different ways, especially when it comes to helping nonreaders find a book that they might like to read.