This book has been on my reading list for quite some time, I have had multiple professors suggest Cris Tovani as a great resource for new teachers, and I was really fascinated by how this book related to me as a student and a teacher.
I fake read all through high school and to be honest have done it a little in college. Sometimes it was because I wasn't interested in the material, sometimes it was because I had procrastinated and needed to read it quickly and then sometimes it was because I felt overwhelmed by my workload and felt like I had to prioritize things and reading went on the back burner. Our students have the same issues. A lot of my students will tell me that they didn't complete the homework because they had to do math homework first and rang out of time to finish their other assignments. So as a teacher I need to be aware of the workload of my students and their other commitments. Obviously, extra-curricular activities or elective classes are not excuses for incomplete work but other classes are also important and we cant overwhelm our students. Reading is important but if we as teachers make it feel like a chore then our students will never love reading and they will never "get it".
I think another thing that Cris points out is that in order to get our students to read we have to model reading. We have to show them that reading is fun (as cheesy as that sounds) and we have to model how to read well. Especially now in the age of technology when students won't read the book because there is probably a T.V. show or movie about it. Students dont read by choice anymore, at least not often and as teachers, we have the opportunity to change that.
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