Literal Reading and Literal Thinking

In "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" Tovani explains that many students who are not illustrating good reading and thinking skills it is because they are thinking and reading literally rather than analyzing, interpreting and relating to the content.  Tovani shares that she often use to say to her students things like "what images do you see?", "what do you smell?", she soon realized many students would take these questions into consideration while reading however they literally were looking for images and smells in the text.  Tovani realized her students did not realize they could use their prior knowledge and experiences to imagine and connect with what they were reading.  Tovani introduces a tool she likes to give her students called "Comprehension Constructors". Comprehension constructors are designed to help readers get through the comprehension process by helping them name and visualize their thinking.  Comprehension constructors are not all the same as they focus on matching the content, reader, and learning goals.  Below is a very general example of a comprehension constructor.  You can specify questions or even give examples of what you are looking for if you feel the content is difficult or that your students will struggle comprehending the content.  Some examples in the book even include having a brief diagram the highlights the main points of the text to help answer the questions in the comprehension constructor.

    I think this tool for readers is a great one.  I do feel that all of Tovani's strategies and tools are very similar.  They all seem to encourage the reader to develop and produce their thinking while reading.  As a future health teacher I think comprehension constructs will be extremely helpful when giving my students content in which they lack prior knowledge, to ensure that I can correct any misconceptions the students may have.