[MOSAIC] Nancy Atwell

[The Simants]

Hello!
   I am a new member of your group and excited to share ideas! I have taught Grades 3, 4, & 5 for 17 years.  I finished a Master's degree in Reading and Literacy last December and will be the Title I reading teacher this coming year.  I live and teach in a "village" of 310 people in rural Nebraska. Our school is a K-12 district and due to the open enrollment laws in NE we have 287 children in our school. 90 students are option students from a larger town 13 miles away.
  Sometimes I feel isolated out here on the plains, so I am thrilled to find this group of effective and caring teachers!
  I discovered reading strategies on-line through a teachers chatboard. I bought and studied all requisite books and incorporated strategy teaching throughout my reading instruction with good results.  This spring I read Nancy Atwell's
"The Reading Zone" and am now very confused!
   Her basic premise is about your top-down/bottom-up debate.
Atwell suggests that children learn to comprehend fiction by READING! She suggests getting the right book in a child's hands is the singular most important component to their learning to comprehend.  She feels strategies such as making connections teach our children to be segmented distracted readers. She feels that when a reader enters 'the zone"
of a great story comprehension will follow.  She feels teaching strategies is only necessary when reading nonfiction.
   Has anyone else read this book?  What are your thoughts?
                      Christina