Getting Un-stuck !(for beginning readers to adults):

Going back to my story about my experience in graduate school where I got stuck as a reader – well I really didn’t know how to fix the situation. After reading the same page several times and getting out a dictionary, I was basically still very stuck. What did I do? Well, I did what my students tell me they do. I showed up to class hoping that the professor would explain it all. I wasn’t brave enough to raise my hand and say, “Hey, I have no clue what that stuff was that we were supposed to read.” Instead, I waited. And waited. To my horror, the reading was not explained at all. What happened instead was the professor and students began a lengthy discussion based on what we read. They took the reading assignment to the next level – making inferences about what they read and making connections to other authors. Now I was really lost. I thought I would never get through graduate school. I wish that I had known some strategies to ease my pain.

Reading Strategies for when you are stuck:

Make a connection between the text and:

Your life Your knowledge of the world Another text or movie or song Make a prediction Stop and think about what you have already read. Ask yourself a question and try to answer it. Reflect in writing on what you have read. Visualize. Use print conventions. Retell what you have read. Reread. Notice patterns in text structure. Adjust your reading rate:   slow down or speed up.*

Try this on your own:

Parents : It is 6:00 p.m. and you are in the kitchen. You are busy preparing today’s dinner. Your child comes in the room, book in hand. And you smile because you told her that she needed to finish her homework before dinner so that you could get her to gymnastics on time. The smile doesn’t last long though because she looks frustrated. You glance at your dinner that is simmering and hope it turns out good. “I don’t get this,” she says. “Here we go,” you think. Don’t send her away; have her plunk down in the kitchen with the book and help her through it. Sometimes it seems easier to just give her the answers or explain it to her, and sometimes that’s okay. But if sometimes is all of the time, she won’t ever get good at getting un-stuck on her own.

You could have her:

• Re-read a particular passage again slowly.
• Read it out loud and then look to you and tell you what she learned.
• Read the section before the part where she got stuck and summarize that part.
• Or do any of the other suggestions above in the reading strategies for when you are stuck section.

As with anything, some strategies may prove to be very helpful while others may offer little help for that particular text.  

*From Tovani , Chris.   I Read It But I Don’t Get It.   Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers .   ( Stenhouse 2000).