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This Ted Talk by Alvin Irby explains the importance of having students identify themselves as "a reader." This talk focuses on the illiteracy of black boys and how as educators it is important to be culturally competent when introducing reading. As educators in any content area, it is important to know our students and cater to their specific needs. This TedTalk relates to this course because along with showing students the importance of reading, it is important to show them how it relates to all content areas. The ways in which we as educators go about teaching students to read can make a world of difference in their education experience. 110

Synthesis Blog #1 Chapter two of Subjects Matter was very interesting to me. Before reading this chapter I hadn’t ever put much thought into what reading actually was or what all the term “reading” encompassed. I like how the chapter starts off and explains the difference between reading and decoding. I think it is so important to recognize that many students may be able to decode the passage and phonetically read all the words but have little to no comprehension of the things they just read. I also learned from this passage that most reading comprehension is only accomplished if the reader has some sort of prior knowledge to build upon. As teachers, it is our job to lay some sort of foundation to our students before assigning them a reading. I like how this chapter explains the many processes our brain has to do simultaneously in order to read any sort of passage because it puts into perspective how much work reading is, especially for students who are still learning. This quot...