Why was this book worthwhile for me to read?

My book is:  Benjamin, A. (2007).  But I’m Not a Reading Teacher:  Strategies for Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

This post contains my thoughts on this book, and the benefit I got from reading it.  For ease in reading, I’ve left the font black, but imagine it red, to be consistent with the other 9 blogs!

This book opened my eyes to the necessity of teaching reading in the context of a science class, or in any classroom for that matter.  I loved that it was pragmatic and gave real-world examples for math, science, social studies, English and foreign language classes.  While my content area is science, there were still viable tips and techniques in these other content areas that made sense to me.

Reading this book made me take a hard look at “traditional” methods of teaching reading.  I don’t know how wide-spread reading comprehension is explicitly taught in English classes, but I don’t believe the “connection” idea is widely taught.  This was a whole new idea for me, that avid readers connect to text.  I’m an avid reader, but I never gave any thought about why I love to escape in books.  It was eye-opening to do some thinking about how I read both fiction and textbooks.  I could see my personal strategies in her words, at least in part, but many of them were new to me.

Of greatest impact were the notions of modeling reading comprehension strategies and finding ways to connect students to the text.  Her use of specific content areas for her examples were a great to demonstrate her strategies, and gave me many ideas.  Certainly, many that I can apply for teaching reading in my science classroom.

My favorite strategies are (in no particular order):

1. Short creative writing exercises to practice using new vocabulary and subject matter in ways that the student chooses. 
2. Read “nature writing” texts to help spark interest and supplement reading the textbook.
3. Break vocabulary down into Greek and Latin origins, so these roots can be applied to different, new words later.
4. Teach the specialized test question wording and have students create test questions themselves.
5. Create graphical representations for critical areas of the content.
6. Model reading comprehension strategies.
7. Find ways to connect students to the text and the content.

I’m so glad I read this book.  Definitely worth it!  As I’ve said before, “Thanks, Amy Benjamin!”