Prompt #5
Before reading Foster, I didn't really think about what it is to read. It is much more than being able to decode letters into a word, a sentence, or a paragraph. As Foster says, “Reading...is a full-contact sport; we crash up against the wave of words with all of our intellectual, imaginative, and emotional resources.” Many people can "read," but not by Foster's definition. To be literate is not to sound out words and put together sentences, but to find meaning in those words and connect it to other pieces of literature outside experiences. While reading this section it reminded me of those times when I have blindly read a book page and had no recollection of what I had just read. My brain was just following the letters and making words from random letters. This is not reading. Concentrating on how the words connect to one another and creating an understanding of those words is reading. That is a lesson I learned from this book. To be literate is not to spell, to sound out words, to sing the alphabet, but to use these skills and apply it to the real world, to connect it to a broader spectrum, and create knew meanings.
I love what you wrote about finding yourself not really "reading" but just simply making out words, and then realizing after this book what it means to really read. I have done this so many times when I feel as if the book isn't as easy to connect to and find a deeper meaning in. However, I have used what I learned from this book, like you said you did as well, to become a more engaged reader in everything I read. It was so helpful to start my summer reading assignments with this book, because I was then able to more easily go into the rest of our assigned books and understand them on a deeper level and stop myself from simply taking in words for their face value.
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ReplyDeleteThis is so true Hannah. There are so many passages that we read in a hurry, never really digesting the words before us. Reading is a contact sport and there is so much more to it than just superficially understanding what it says. We should never read a story, book, poem, or article and simply say "done". We are never truly done with something we have just read, it is a part of us now. Your closing statement is so beautiful because reading is about creating new meanings. Being literate means that we are listeners. We are accepting of new work and accepting of the new ideas presented before us. You have done an excellent job of explaining that a writer does not slop words together but individually cross-stitches each word to create a "broader spectrum and new meaning".
DeleteI feel the same way. Before reading Foster's book I didn't think about reading as a whole I would be mindlessly reading for pages and not being thoughtful. Foster's book opened my mind to what it means to be a reader, and what it means to read, and how it is important to understand what you are reading. Reading gives us the chance to open our minds to new thoughts, and to discuss with others thier perception, and how they feel. This is important because if readers continue to "mindlessly read" then the chance to get to relate and express ideas on a more extensive degree becomes difficult.
ReplyDeleteI relate to that first sentence. Reading to me had always been simply opening the book and understanding the words on the pages to try and form a story. Rarely did I ever go into much more detail than that. After reading this book though, I realized that reading was so much more than I had ever understood it to be. I can't simply glance at the words and halfheartedly take them in. I have to be willing to open my mind to what the author wants me to see and be more engaged. Annotating the book seems to help me take in more than the surface meaning of the words.
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