Saturday Sayings: Practicing Mediocrity

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I'm mediocre at boiling eggs.  Every time I need hardboiled eggs, I google the directions, ask on Facebook, or text someone.  It's so simple.  Yet it's something my brain refuses to retain.  Even though it's a silly example, I understand mediocrity.  We all do in one way or another.  My young struggling readers do as well.  They might not know the word mediocrity or are able to verbalize their specific reading struggles, but surely they can tell that some classmates have a much easier time with words on a page than they do.  What would it feel like to go from one mediocre reading to another?  It must be a lot worse than going from one boiling egg moment to another, and because I'm so terrible at boiling eggs I try to avoid the act altogether.  We've all seen struggling readers do the same with books.

Rasinski talks a lot about repeated readings, and I believe in their power as well.  My struggling readers don't just need to reread, it's necessary.  Like the quotation says, their first readings are typically not good or at least not fluent.  When given the opportunity to reread, they actually begin to experience the benefits of what reading has to offer as far as strategy usage, word recognition, fluency, and comprehension, not to mention the fact that the process is much more enjoyable at that point as well.  I want to be certain that my readers experience all the benefits of reading instead of the disadvantages of practicing mediocrity.