Gibbons ch. 5

I’d like to start by saying that this chapter was, by far, one of the best chapters I read in college. With that being said I’d like to start by saying that the examples used and the way they were referred to in the text were phenomenal. Gibbons states “In one sense, reading simply confirms what we know: we map our already existing experiences onto what we read.” (p. 79). This hits hard to home. He goes on to say, as we read, we already have a preconceived idea of what is going to be said. That is why it was so easy fro us to fill in the blanks, and read the jumbled words he provided.

As I read on I saw many strategies for activities before, during and after reading. I find that I use these same strategies when I read. Starting with skimming the text and looking at pictures, I can gauge what kind of reading I’ll be doing and what kinds of supports or tools I might have while reading. I can see how the text is broken up and by reading the summary at the end; I can see where the author is going so I can start connecting ideas.

I found the Rereading for Detail section to be very interesting. Rereading what we’ve read is something that we urge to young students that are first learning to read to do. We tell them that by reading and then rereading they can find more details corresponding to the text. In that they will find more meaning and understand a bit more about the text. I can imagine that I was taught this same way when I was first starting to read. Yet, now, I cannot recall the last thing I read, and the reread to gain more meaning. Perhaps I reread a sentence or paragraph to figure out what the heck it was talking about, or reread a page forgetting that I had once read it, however, to ask me to reread something seems almost absurd.