I Read It, but I Don't Get It

This is one of the better pedagogy books I've read, to be sure, though I can't agree with everything Tovani says. I really appreciate that it comes from the voice of experience, as a former non-reading student. Many of the common problems with struggling readers would not likely even be considered by veteran readers, which nearly all English teachers are. The readers themselves, having more limited communication skills, would not then likely be able to articulate the problems they're having so that more help can be sought. Some otherwise effective teachers may simply write this off as a lack of motivation and attention.
One of the best parts of the book was the analogy of driving a car. The ultimate goal in driving is to get from point A to point B, but in getting there, the driver has to be continuously checking blindspots, paying attention to signs and lights, monitoring speed, sometimes switching gears, etc.
A veteran driver does all these things without even thinking about them, but if we can put ourselves back in our teenage bodies, we'll remember that learning how to drive was much more complicated before we had so much practice. It's the same with reading, and most of us have been reading for much longer than we've been driving, so that we can hardly recall where the true heavy-lifting took place, and how it felt.
The emphasis that Tovani puts on the existential connection between thinking and reading is invaluable. So many students will gladly just allow their eyes to cover the page, decoding all the words, and even retaining bits of information, but with no concept of logical sequence or connections to the rest of the text. And everyone does have to train themselves, when they begin working with more difficult or less interesting texts, to recognize quickly when they've lost comprehension and have begun to just go through the motions of reading. For a student to make this leap into a higher maturity of reading it is, at first, very frustrating. Few students will have met this challenge until they find it in a textbook of some kind, and a strong purpose must be given so that the student will consider the struggle worthwhile. An effective teacher will have to bring the student past this point in a way that is unique to the student or class, and this can be one of the greatest struggles teachers face in regard to their students' reading ability.