D&Z: Chapter 1&2

Daniels and Zelmelman’s “Subjects Matter” is a surprisingly interesting and enlightening read. In Chapter 1 really liked the contrasting stories of Mr. Cosgrove and the young men at McDonald’s.  Obviously, the first story, the McDonald’s story is the more favorable way of teaching reading. Unfortunately, I think the Mr. Cosgrove story is an exaggerated way that most of us have been taught through the years.

In Chapter 2, I really liked the section where the authors mention that “reading is more than decoding”. It reminds me of the small groups discussion we had in our last class. As a group we couldn’t come to a conclusion whether or not simply saying a word (or decoding a word) was reading or not. This section of the chapter cleared things up for me.  Reading is not just receiving a message, a they put it, it’s much more than that. Throughout the chapter I found my self stumped on the sample reading passages. I love to read, but those passages had me scratching my head. But it was a great and effectual way to show us how our future students may be reading text that we supply them with. We can’t just be like Mr. Cosgrove and assume that our students read the assigned text, understood and have mastered the subject matter. As future teachers, it is our job to make sure our students are active readers and not just merely decoders.