Chapter 3 - Question 9

Question 9

Quote on page 68 – “Confusion is the perfect starting place for learning.”

This is a great example of how the RA strategies shift thinking away from the idea that if you don’t “get it”, you’re stupid. Students can now embrace confusion as a way of pinpointing a place of growth in their learning.

This quote above from page 68 goes along with the line on page 70, “It’s important to know what you don’t know”. I’ve heard this idea described as the first step on the path to wisdom.

I’ve found that once students can accept that it’s not only okay to be confused, it is necessary, they can move forward more easily. A good example is introducing vocabulary in context, when students have to use context clues to guess the meaning of the word.

I like using a reading survey in the beginning of the Reading Power text by Jeffries and Mikulecky, because it highlights many myths about successful readers, including the idea that you have to know the meaning of every word in a paragraph to understand the paragraph. I use this survey to help create a framework of myths, then countering them with reading strategies for each.