Reading Strategies and my books of 2018

   Each of the 85 books I read last year had an effect on me. As I teach my students, "Reading is thinking."  Every book requires of its readers a level of engagement. Being touched by the books we read proves that we have taken them seriously and that we are not just passive recipients of knowledge being poured into our brains.
   There are specific reading strategies that help us to get the most out of the books we read. As I go through each strategy, I will highlight a book or two I read in the past year which especially required this strategy of me.

Visualization

When reading, it is helpful to picture in one's mind the action that is taking place.  As the author

describes people and place, they come to life in our imaginations. Two books I read last year that became vivid in my mind were The Trumpet of the Swan by E B White and Stolen Child Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch. The first book highlights Sam Beaver, a boy who comes to a remote part of Canada and who becomes bound up with a family of swans. The wilderness setting was a bit similar to a green space near my suburban home. When Louis the swan leaves his family to find his voice, the sights and sounds are told in lovely detail. Stolen Child is set at the same time period that my father and his siblings came to Canada as immigrants. Some of the scenes of the country school and the simple and practical home built by new settlers I imagined to take place on and around the property of my dear aunt and uncle who lived on a farm in the Niagara Peninsula.

Prediction

As we read fiction books, we use our own background to try to predict what a character will do next or what events might follow. By making conscious or unconscious predictions, we invest in the story and care more about the outcome. The book from 2018 that I found myself making predictions for was My Secret Sister by Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith. This lengthy biography of two sisters separated early in life and raised in different households had alternating narrators. As narrators switched, I found myself trying to figure out how the story would continue.  So many things in the story were difficult to predict, such as one family moving to South Africa for a period of time, and the surprising revelations about other siblings who had been raised by others and remained unacknowledged by their birth mother.

Connections

Every story we hear or read connects to our lives in some way because there are common experiences in being human.  Stories can also connect to other stories we've heard or to world events we are aware of. The books that led to many connections for me in 2018 were Meet Viola Desmond by Elizabeth MacLeod and The Soul of Shame by Curt Thompson. Both are non-fiction books.  The first one is a picture book that tells the story of African-Canadian, Viola Desmond. In 2018, this woman's image was revealed on the Canadian $10 bill. Learning about her story enabled me to connect it to the story of American civil rights activist, Rosa Parks.  Both women did not give up their seats in order to assert their human rights, and both were punished at the time.  However, in time, they have both come to be admired and exonerated. The book The Soul of Shame provided me with connections because all humans deal with guilt and shame. Hearing the author speak at two different conferences helped me make deeper connections between what he said in his book and my own life experiences.

Questions & Evaluation

As we read, we can ask question in our minds. What is the author's purpose? Do I agree with what this character has chosen to do? What would I do in this person's place? What will I do with what I have learned? Is this story true to life? The book I read in 2018 that led to the most questions was Good to Great by Jim Collins. On the surface this is a business book, but the principles it holds up apply to all kinds of organizations. I found myself asking how I could apply the things I was learning to myself as a leader, to various aspects of the organizations I am part of. I even did a bonus group assignment to explore how school leaders can invite more timely feedback from parents, teachers and the community to address problems early.

Clarifying

Finally, clarifying is a reading strategy that focuses on understanding words and sentences. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde required this of me the most of all the books I read in 2018.  Wilde wrote this work in 1890; its structure and vocabulary reflect a highly educated and literary level. My son studied this novel in a university English class and encouraged me to take it up. As much as I encourage my students to read books that stretch their reading ability and comprehension, I need to practice this myself.