The Reader in MeApril EtzoldRED 6116

I am an Omnivorous Reader (who has to diet occasionally)

• I read everything from blogs and beauty magazines to best sellers and the classics.

• I love to read, but reading for pleasure sometimes has to take a backseat to my responsibilities at work, my own homework, and my personal responsibilities.

• I typically spend much of my summer vacations getting caught up on all of the reading I’ve been craving all year.

My Learning Styles

LinguisticMathematical/LogicalVisual/SpatialMusicalInter-PersonalIntra-PersonalBodily/PhysicalNaturalistic

The learning styles inventory shows how truly diverse my interests and learning styles are. My strongest area is linguistics – which explains how I came to be an English teacher. I am also very strong in other areas, especially inter-personal, intra-personal, and bodily-physical. My tastes in books, movies, and hobbies also reflects this diversity.

How I Choose a Book• I have a close group of friends who are

reading or English teachers (and also omnivorous readers). We often make recommendations to each other – usually for young adult novels.

• I often become interested in books I hear people talking about on television – I want to know what all the fuss is about.

• I frequently peruse amazon.com reading book reviews and investigating the books they recommend to me based on past selections.

My Strengths and Weaknesses• My strengths include a strong vocabulary, diverse

tastes, a wide-range of background knowledge, the ability to infer meanings and the ability to empathize with characters.

• My weaknesses are becoming bored easily, being overly-critical, and being easily distracted.

Fix-up Strategies

• When reading difficult texts I usually will take notes as I read in order to maintain focus on the important points. I may also have to go back and reread certain sections.

• This was especially true when I was reading this textbook for EDF 6481 last spring.

I shared this experience with my students to show them how active reading strategies can help comprehension, even with the most challenging texts. I demonstrated my use of the strategies through “think-alouds”, then had students practice keeping notes during reading. Afterwards we discussed how note-taking helped them stay focused on the text and when other strategies, such as rereading, were necessary.