Praise Daniels for mentioning Eric Paulson. Also praise Eric Paulson for recognizing the importance of post-it notes. When I look back and think of my experience in grade school, specifically concerning reading response logs, I remember many made up comments or over exaggerated feelings towards the texts that I read, and the texts that I “read”. What I find when I read Miller, as well as Daniels is that somehow they are making reading captivating enough to make the students stop, think, and interpret through their lives the worth of the text. I finally find myself attacking my textbooks with highlighters and post it notes with comments but I think that’s because I’m not 12 anymore and I can’t really get away with not reading (and I guess it is pretty interesting too) But when Daniels writes about post it notes being, “inserted right in the book to capture, and save responses” (Daniels 96) I know I want to do that but how do I make children that engaged with their readings and have the desire to record a thought then and there? What I pick up on most when I read Miller is the process of her think aloud. I understand her modeling a think aloud and what she wants the students to do, for example, “When I read those words, vivid images, or pictures come into my mind. I have an image of my mother, brother, and I streaking across the flatlands of Kansas on a train called the El Capitan. I see up looking…… Girls and boys, did you notice how creating mental images seemed to make the text come alive for me?” (Miller 101) she explains amazing descriptions of how she feels and what she pictures, but what I don’t grasp is when I try to incorporate these strategies with my small teacher, is the enthusiasm in my reading, the different voices, inflections, etc. I feel like this is the biggest part to making a think aloud work. I want to capture the attention and have my children want to “lie down, close [their] eyes, and listen to the words as I read” (Miller 101) as Miller spoke about in her chapter, but how?
On top of all that nonsense kinda related, kinda not to our assigned chapters, this quote was probably the most inspiring thing I’ve ever read from a child about reading. “When my mom reads me Harry Potter, it’s like I have a paint set inside my brain. And I never run out of paint!” (Miller 109) *Praise HP too*










