Summary: Stupid Lady From Denver

Previously, in Dr. Boyce’s literacy class, we rigorously studied and learned how to apply reading strategies to specific texts. Thus, the text ‘Stupid Lady From Denver’ by Chris Tovani (2004) struck me as especially familiar. Everything that was stated in the article brought back memory after memory of all the various reading strategies we covered last semester. Tovani (2004) states that “Good readers separate themselves from struggling readers when they recognize that they are confused and do something to repair meaning”, which rings especially true to my memory as well (p. 5). She encouraged us to seek out challenging portions of the text that confused us, use our marks to label what was unknown, and then use the strategies such as ReQuest,

Boyce stressed was choosing the correct strategy for a particular text. Some strategies simply won’t work for some texts; Question the Author for an informational text would not be useful at all. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to accurately choose a correct strategy that will match the text (or vice versa, depending on what is being taught), as well as something that will interest my students and be on or around their grade level (Fisher & Frey, 2015. p.525). The best way to teach students how to use these strategies is by applying the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model, or the GRRM, which is simply a three-step process of moving the use of the work from the teacher to the student (Fisher & Frey, 2015. p. 527). It begins as teacher-led, where the educator guides the student through the strategy, and then moves onto peer-led, where they work together in groups to use the strategy (Fisher & Frey, 2015. p. 527). Finally, it ends in independent work, where the students are comfortable enough with the strategy to use it on their own (Fisher & Frey, 2015. p. 527). The GRRM has proven to work wonders for me, as it allows the teacher to use informal assessment to see which step the class should be at and adjust the instruction to that