What Type of Reader are You?

[Deb]

Which type of reader most closely describes you? Why?

[A]

I would say that in Elementary and Middle School I was somewhere between a developing reader and a dormant reader. I was not the strongest reader nor was I confident in my abilities. However, throughout high school, I became more of the textbook definition of a dormant reader.
It wasn’t until the last year of high school that I started to fall in love with reading. I loved the satisfactory feeling of finishing a book. I also love trying to relate a character, theme, or event in the book to my life. I also loved the teacher I had which was a huge motivator for me. Her classroom and structure made me want to read to get involved in class discussions and bouncing ideas off others. Her class has contributed to how I view reading, now.
Now I would say I am an underground reader. If I have a book about a topic I care about or that is thrilling, I will not get anything done until I finish it. If that’s not possible, I carry it around with me and read it whenever I get the chance.
I’m not entirely sure if someone can be all three types of readers in different points in life. However, I feel as though I was/am. Which I think supports Miller’s claim that the right environment and practice can help a student tremendously. I also think learning one’s own strengthens and weaknesses can also help one to become an active and engaged reader.

[Becky]

I was a Developing reader when I was in elementary. I had extra help in school, however as I look back it was more a problem of not being able to pay attention and not liking the book choices given to me. I still have a hard time reading something if I just don’t like it. As a middle school and high school student I turned into an Underground reader because I found the genre that spoke to me. I had a teacher that once told me it didn't matter what I read as long as I read every day. That same teacher let us pick what we each wanted to read and then worked the assignments around our choices. After that I was off and running and have not stopped reading since.

[Mallory]

I think in school I was the underground reader. I loved reading, but hated the books that were assigned to the class and struggled to read them at the class pace. I did not look forward to class discussions regarding the readings that were assigned. Now I love reading with the freedom to chose the genres and the books that appeal to me. I read in my spare time (if I ever have any) and enjoy being able to relate the books that I read with the students that I work with.

[Kiera]

The reason I connected so well with this article was because I was definitely a dormant reader. I scored low on reading and had to go to summer school specifically for reading because my teacher said I had failed it. I really don’t remember enjoying reading at that time either. That summer at summer school my teacher couldn’t believe that my prior teacher said I failed reading because once she gave me a book I liked, I couldn’t put it down. All I really needed was a little encouragement. After that summer I fell in love with reading and never struggled with it again. That just shows the difference one teacher can make.

[Allie]

I was definitely an underground reader. I completed the necessary classwork, but rarely found any joy in it. I spent a good portion of my free time reading for pleasure. I'm told that I struggled for a while in K/1st grade, but once i figured out vowels, I was off and running! :)

[Mackenzie]

I'm pretty sure I would have been considered a dormant reader. However, I am not sure that any of these titles truly fit me very well. Throughout most of high school, I enjoyed reading the books that were picked for me in class. I loved having the discussions and picking apart every last detail. In fact, some of my favorite books have been classics that I never would have picked up had it not been for my teacher. On the other hand, I loved reading other books, too. I just didn't choose to do it very often.

[Morganne]

I am a dormant reader. I never really enjoyed books that were given to me to read for class, but I did read them and did well on understanding what was going on and I knew the test material. I like to read what my own interests are and it is rarely what is required for school. The librarian at my elementary school would always help me find books that interested me and what I liked, and I loved reading those books. In high school when I was given books such as the Grapes of Wrath, or Wuthering Heights, I dreaded reading them. When I find books that I pick and that I like I can easily get lost in them and read for hours.

[Ashley]

I think that I would be considered a dormant reader. When I was in high school and middle school I never enjoyed reading the books we had to read for class I would briefly read them so that I would get a good grade in that unit. I would never read on my own time. Since I have started college I have started to enjoy books more and make more time for reading and actually find it relaxing. I don't read too often but that is something that I would like to do more of.

[Allison]

Deb wrote: "Which type of reader most closely describes you? Why?"

I don't particularly identify with any of the types of readers described in the text. My mother has undergraduate degrees in English and Secondary Education, and a Graduate Degree in Counseling. She is a reader in every way, shape and form. She introduced my brothers and I to books while we were sill in the womb. There are thousands of books piled around her home. My childhood was punctuated by multiple trips to he library, every other day from infancy to high school. In fact. I have been able to read as long as I can remember. Starting as far back as preschool, my teachers had me entertain my peers by reading to them while they cleaned the classroom, or work to help the understaffed school by doing one on one work with my classmates. With the exception of one year where I answered all C's on my standardized tests in protest of my school's handling of Talented and Gifted programming, I had the highest test scores in Iowa for my grade. My mother's support and my own drive made it impossible for me to be a developing reader, or someone who has difficulty understanding written material in all aspects of their lives.
I love reading, I've always devoured books, whether they were my own picks or ones chosen for me by teachers, librarians or my parents. I've never even come close to falling in the middle of the pack, someone who is not really a reader but who can pass state tests. I am not and have never been a dormant reader. Books, to me, are magical. Letters excite me, and if at all possible I would never stop reading.
Finally, I'm not certain if I am an underground reader or not, someone who sees the reading done in the classroom as completely disconnected from my own. My closet hides a stack of books stolen from my high school, ranging from Spanish books to copies of Catcher in the Rye to old Physics texts. I read them, connected them to my life, and participated in class discussions surrounding the reading. I realized their value. I have always found relationships between my reading and school reading. For this reason, I may not be an underground reader. With that said, I do identify with the author's description of underground readers as students whose needs go unaddressed as teachers struggle to instruct and motivate other members of the classroom. The vast majority of my elementary and middle school experience was spent in the hallway, sometimes alone, or, in the case of math and science classes, with the same three boys. We were made to practice whatever subject the instructor was busy teaching the other students. We were the ones who got 100% scores on our pretests, we were the ones who the teachers had little to no time for. These experiences lead me to identify a little bit with the author's description of an underground reader.

[Tiffany]

I would associate myself as an underground reader because I have always enjoyed reading for leisure. I have books that I can read over and over because I love falling into the worlds of the stories and connecting to the characters. I am a flip flopper on reading assignments, because I judge based on the class and teacher to see if I need to read in order to do well in the class or section. In high school, read the books that caught my attention with in the first few chapters and other I did not read if I wasn't interested in the novel. I have always been a good reader but not above grade level, just slightly above average within grade level.

[Makenzie]

Throughout Elementary School, I would have considered myself as a developing reader. I distinctly remember struggling with reading, having to go to resource to get help. I did not have the best reading ability, and struggled when it came to standardized tests. Because of my struggle with reading, I was never fond of reading.

Once I reached Middle School, I would have considered myself as a dormant reader. Reading became much more prominent in the curriculum at school. I would do whatever it took to just get by in my classes. I would say that my reading ability had improved greatly and I was up to reading at grade level. At this point and time, I still did not enjoy reading. I feel as though it was partly due to the book selection that my teachers had chosen.

When High School came around I would have considered myself to be an underground reader. Something drastically changed in my view of reading. I was introduced to books that were actually enjoyable. Our school had brought in a new librarian and she helped me tremendously. She helped me discover books that caught my eye. She helped my discover how reading can be a pleasurable activity and not something to dread. My reading level had spiraled and became above my grade level. I would take countless trips to Barnes and Noble to buy more books to read. My shelves at home are now filled with books. Still to this day I would consider myself to be an underground reader. I enjoy reading in my spare time, but when it comes to reading for a class I find it to be not as enjoyable!

[Jessica]

I think that at some point in my life I have exhibited the traits of every type of reader that is described. Currently, I would consider myself to be an underground reader. Although it is something that I don't do as often as I would like, I feel that reading is a way for me to relax and almost escape away from the world. I can find myself falling so deep into a book that it becomes all that I can think about. I have developed a love for reading and I feel that I can get so much out of sitting down and reading a book. On the other hand, if I am required to do any sort of reading for school as an assignment or in order to obtain necessary information, I see it as a chore and it is not nearly as enjoyable. I still complete reading activities and assignments well, but I do not feel as strong of a connection with the material compared to if it was something that I was reading on my own time and of my own preference.

[Sarah]

The term "underground reader" sort of makes me giggle. It seems like i would be doing it secretively or in hiding but in reality i was just ready to complete assignments. I never really enjoyed having to read for a class. Keeping up with deadlines, writing reviews, doing projects over it always seemed to take the joy out of a good book. I think that i lost my love of reading when it became more work to read and keep up then it was just to read to read. Thankfully, i rediscovered my love when i found a series i liked. After that, i think i began to love reading again.

ps. the series was the twilight saga, lame, but oh so good!

[Melissa]

I think that for most of my life I was a dormant reader. In elementary school, middle school, and high school I never read for enjoyment. I just read to get by in my classes and I did what I had to do to pass tests in school. I think I felt disconnected from reading because my teachers were always choosing the books I had to read so; I made no real connection to what I was reading. I now feel like a dormant reader though. I have found books that interest me and I read for pleasure. But, when I’m told I have to read something that doesn't interest me I don’t want to read it because I have no connection to it and feel as I’m being forced to read something I don’t want to like I experienced in my younger years.

[Sandra]

I would say that I am definitely an underground reader. Growing up my parents constantly read to me, and before I went to Kindergarten I knew how to read. So, my entire life I have felt that the books read in school weren't "challenging" enough, and I would breeze through them in a week and then be left bored in class, much like the author. I still enjoy reading immensely and think of it as a time for me to escape and relax in a world different from my own.

[Brennan]

The dormant reader is the type of reader that I identify with most. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, the teachers I had assigned what books the class was going to read. I rarely got to choose books that were of interest to me, and when I had the chance to, I had to do a lengthy book report over the book. The teacher chosen readings and assignments made me somewhat dislike reading from middle to high school. Aside from a few novels, the books that my teachers chose were not relatively intriguing to me. This made me view reading as “work” rather than pleasure. I would say I did the readings in order to pass the tests, but rarely read outside of class.

[Welton]

I was a dormant reader growing up and I am still somewhat of a dormant reader. I am somewhat of an underground reader because I've read several different genres, like; Self Help, Spiritual Enlightening, sports, Martial Arts, Medical Thrillers, and Auto Biographies/Biographies. I enjoy reading but I have to invest a lot of time into school, so I don't read for pleasure as much.

[Cassidy]

For some reason I distinctly remember being a Dormant Reader until exactly halfway through first grade- I was struggling, until my Grandpa got me this huge book of fairy tales and children's rhymes, and I read that thing probably a billion times that break. When I got back to school I was suddenly was reading like nobody's business. Ever since, I've been an Underground-type, constantly surrounding myself with books. I spent my middle school years hiding my awkward brace-face behind books in the school library, and in high school I was consistently the only person who liked the assigned readings, though I would never have admitted it. Now I read all sorts of books, from poetry to thriller to young adult fiction.

[Samantha]

I think I am a dormant reader. I honestly dred reading any books that teachers assign to me. I do not remember anything I read from middle or high school except for Lord of the Flies and 1984. I think I remembered these two the most because the assignments we had to complete for points were based more on creativity and opinion rather than basic comprehension tests. We read The Giver, The Scarlet Letter, and other classic novels that I just do not remember. I regret this because reading is an amazing thing, and I think it took me till reading this article to realize that. The only books that I have read for pleasure were The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey series and I did not start reading these till my senior year of high school. Although a dormant reader, I am determined to have a class full of read-for-pleasure readers.

[Samantha]

While I don’t remember what type of reader I was at elementary school, I think most of my life I was a dormant reader. I always read whatever was assigned but never really enjoyed it. I just read because it was assigned material and I needed to read to pass. When I was in middle school I remember my 8th grade English teacher giving our class more freedom and choice in what we read. Similarly to Miller’s classroom, we were allowed to check out books from our classroom bookshelf as much as we wanted. I remember then really enjoying what I read because I got to choose what I was reading. We were allowed to take a quiz on our books we chose to earn Accelerated Reader points for extra credit in class. That really encouraged me to read more and I became more of an underground reader for some time. In high school however, we weren’t encouraged as much to earn Accelerated Reader points so I withdrew from reading on more own time. I went back to being a dormant reader and read only what was assigned and never really enjoyed it. I don’t remember most of what I read in High School because I didn’t find it interesting. Now I see myself as more of an underground reader. I try to read as much as I can whenever I have free time. Sometimes I can read a book in a few days, but when I get busy I sometimes go weeks without reading. Now I usually carry either my kindle or whatever book I’m reading in my purse so that I can just get in a few pages here and there. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read at least one chapter of a book a day that I enjoy (for myself, not for assigned homework). I think that this is helping me become more of an underground reader.

[Lindsey]

I would say that I am most definitely a dormant reader, throughout Elementary and Middle School I never truly felt that I was encouraged or pushed to pick up a book and read it for my own personal pleasure. I may have been told to pick up a book, but usually those books failed to grab my attention and just became a burden to read. I feel that these required books that I had to read became a burden because I knew what was going to come next, the dreaded book reports and long, tedious projects. Throughout High School I never really loved reading, until I took a class called Contemporary Literature. In this class, we spent almost the entire class period reading books and there were projects we had to do but the books were ones that we were able to pick out from a list. In this class I felt like my instructor encouraged us to read these books and allowed us to read at our own pace. Before this class, I have never felt that I have been pushed to pick up a good book and read on my own time.
Today, it is very unlikely that I would pick up a book for my own pleasure. I do currently teach preschoolers and absolutely love reading to them and encourage them to pick up books and look through them. Although almost all of them cannot read, I still allow them to pick up books they like and have them find simple sight words. I think this is very important to introduce at a young age and continue to encourage these children to read as they go onto Elementary and Middle school.