Chapter 3 -

As I read I realize that this woman must be in my classroom with me, right? She is not describing students she has encountered, but students in my classroom at this very moment. In the section titled "Dependent Reading Behaviors" I was stopping at each one thinking "this is what he does and this is what she does!" The main problems for my dependent readers are:

• cannot state the main idea of a tect
• reads to finish rather than to understand
• has trouble recalling information in the text.

Some of the bullets I haven't even began to tackle because we are still stuck on so many basic comprehension skills. When I got to the second to last one ("says that reading is 'boring' and 'dumb'") I can't help but laugh. My kids say that every five minutes! I feel her regret for not being able to meet with George's parents again so deeply. I worry that after this experience I will have regrets about not being able to combat the dependency these kids have in the short time that I will be with them.

It was encouraging to reread "What Good Readers Do" I had a lot of experience with this is my other Reading and Phonics classes, and even the teachers need to remind themselves of ways to be a good reader. It encouraged me to take these statements into the classroom and try to stop harping on the negative and build on what little amounts of positive we have thus far.