Chapter 5 Understanding and Using Texts

One of the major aspects of Chapter 5 that stood out to me was the section about making personal connections with the text. The book mentions that “students who are widely read in an area or have relevant life experiences often build on those experiences to confront complicated texts. By having background knowledge about a topic, students can better understand and interpret a text. If a teacher presents a reading selection with which students have no previous knowledge, then the teacher needs to take steps to insure that the students have something to relate the information to. By taking the extra time to provide some background on unknown topics, the teacher can help some students to better comprehend the reading.

Another section of Chapter 5 mentioned how sometimes different types of texts are not appropriated because they are confusing. I know from my own personal experience, that when I am reading any type of text that is not clear or is complicated, then I lose interest very quickly. The reading does not have to be so simple that it is not stimulating, but it also does not need to be so difficult that a dictionary is needed to understand the sentences. Some students struggle enough with just simply reading; they do not need the extra difficulty of having to fight with arrangement.

I really found the section on digital text very interesting. As mentioned in Chapter 4, by bringing in things that students are familiar with, the teacher stands a better chance of getting the students motivated and involved. Naturally, today’s students are more interested in digital text than reading a textbook. Even though the textbooks are still necessary, supplemental information can be found using the different forms of digital text, such as the Internet. In addition, the website list that the book presented for teachers to find helpful additional information was phenomenal. I know that I will find it useful in locating more reading materials for my students; reading selections that they are actually interested in reading, not just some that I give them to say they are reading.