When working with bilingual readers, teaching for equity means building on students' linguistic strengths. To do so, we must provide intentionally designed holistic literacy instruction that encourages students to use their full literacy and linguistic repertoire. This article describes an asset-oriented approach called "Transliteracy"…

Learning to read is an expectation rather than an exception in society today. Despite this, some children experience reading difficulties. The purpose of this article is to review recent and seminal research on reading difficulties through the lenses of three perspectives: cognitive, social and cultural and interactive. The three perspectives are…

Students with disabilities often find writing extremely challenging (Harris & Graham, 2016). Special educators can, however, promote tremendous gains in students' ability to write by understanding common challenges students face and mastering specific teaching techniques. Students' writing success depends on reducing how much attention and…

In school the author struggled to read and write. In fact, he really did not read until his teens, when he learned by reading the comics in their local paper, much to the chagrin of his two teacher-parents. For the first 12 years of his life the author grew up on a beautiful farm in the border country between England and Wales. His life was so…

This article provides a framework for designing balanced literacy instruction for individuals with significant needs. A balanced literacy approach consists of instruction in word work, reading, and writing. It is critical to realize that balanced literacy ties closely to communication. The authors promote utilizing a before, during, and after…

Although mental imagery's positive role in reading comprehension is clear, the means of introducing imagery to young readers is comparatively vague. Mental imagery's very nature, being nonverbal, invisible, and often unconscious, results in a mismatch with standard instructional practices. Verbal explanations of nonverbal phenomenon fall short.…

Describes an assignment in which the preservice teacher must find a connection between science and Shakespeare. Connects the science of the witches in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to the holistic approach of education. (SG)

Responding to Steven A. Stahl's critique of the author's reading style claims, this article cites four successful pilot programs using the Reading Style Inventory. All four schools demonstrated dramatic reading gains. Generally, holistic reading instruction methods appear to match most closely the reading styles of young children and poor readers.…

Shares classroom practices that are the result of implementing a communication literacy instructional module developed for Project ACHIEVE (Academic Coaching Helps Individuals Experience a Vital Education), a federally funded at-risk prevention program. (RS)

Offers a brief overview of shifting models in reading instruction. Presents the holistic model which guides instruction at the reading center of a midwestern state university. Illustrates the model with entries from a tutor's diary. (SR)

The article outlines a classroom-tested holistic language arts curriculum for the junior high resource room. The program covers reading, vocabulary building, comprehension, use of visual aid strategies, use of auditory/linguistic comprehension strategies, writing, listening, and speaking. Advantages of the curriculum include individualization,…

Describes alternative assessment approaches that provide important information about students with reading difficulties. Criticizes the medical or diagnostic/prescriptive approach to diagnosis. Presents a four-step diagnostic process derived from the holistic/wellness model. (HB)

This biographical article about Anna Gillingham describes her holistic technique for teaching children with specific language disabilities to read, using a sequential, graphemic-phonemic multisensory program. The dedication she exhibited in training teachers to use her remedial techniques is also explored. (JDD)

Describes a case study of a Norwegian deaf boy with severe reading disorder. Initiates a holistic approach to writing instruction based on process-oriented writing, Norwegian sign language, drawings, and word processing augmented with a word prediction system called PAL (Predictive Adaptive Lexicon). Concludes that this approach managed to get…

Follows up the author's April 1999 article in this same journal, which described how her teaching improved when she decided not to focus on the minimal competency test for Texas. Quantifies ways her students became better readers and reports on the high pass rate of those very students on the reading section of the Texas Assessment of Academic…