[MOSAIC] Nancie Atwell

[gina nunley]

I LOVE the discussion of Nancie Atwell's Reading Zone!  I think it is 
professionally healthy for us to take the stance of "What if?" there's a 
better way?  Keeps us truly balanced and in my opinion more likely to meet 
the needs of most of the kids in an inclusion classroom like mine.

Anyway.......I have struggled with isolated teaching of strategies....I've 
tried different approaches.  Teaching them all and then zooming in on them 
when one seems most appropriate in a reading....spending weeks on 
one......just introducing them and only focusing on the most struggling 
kids.

I don't have any solid conclusions, but I do know that if I spend too much 
time in isolation I tend to get contrived responses that in the end don't 
seem to benefit the reader.  But I disagree with Nancie that the strategies 
never need to be taught.   Haven't all of us chimed in here to mention how 
our own reading improved once we were metacognitive about these strategies.  
I consciously stop myself sometimes in difficult text and try a fix-up 
strategy.

The goal for me is to streamline the process in a way that brings reader's 
attention to strategic reading, but doesn't create an artificial reading 
environment in their heads.

Love to hear if others have found methods that hit the middle of this 
debate.  Gina

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