The growing number of children in primary schools in Germany who have German as their second language (L2) has raised questions about the fairness of performance assessment. Fair tests are a prerequisite for distinguishing between L2 learning delay and a specific learning disability. We evaluated five commonly used reading and spelling tests for…

Students with learning disabilities (LD) in reading often struggle to succeed due to difficulties with reading comprehension. Comprehension difficulties can impact access to a variety of text types, including informational texts. Researchers suggest that students with LD in reading require explicit comprehension supports before, during, and after…

Teachers of students with learning disabilities (LD) who also are emergent bilingual (EB) are tasked with meeting students' individual learning needs and developing academic language. Teachers require specialized knowledge in second-language acquisition and the specific learning strategies to support students' learning disabilities. Reading…

I present a theoretical basis for the use of critical literacy as an important instructional and ideological approach in the field of special education. Virtually no reading comprehension intervention studies predominantly involving students with learning or other high incidence disabilities use principles or elements of critical literacy. I…

National and international assessments of reading, science and math indicate that students and adults in the United States lag behind citizens of other developed nations. While there are many reasons for this lag, recent advances in cognitive science and technology have uncovered promising ways to intervene and help struggling students. This…

Reading Recovery, a meaning-based reading program designed for young children at risk of reading failure, is widely implemented across the United States. We discuss the recent Reading Recovery $45 million four-year i3-funded scaleup study that was designed to "cover the expansion of Reading Recovery around the U.S." (May, Sirinides,…

Skill in generating inferences predicts reading comprehension for students in the elementary and intermediate grades even after taking into account word reading, vocabulary knowledge, and cognitive ability (Cain et al., "Journal of Educational Psychology, 96," 671-81, 2004; Kendeou et al., "Journal of Research in Reading," 31,…

"Reciprocal teaching" is an instructional method designed to help teach reading comprehension skills to students with adequate decoding proficiency. During initial instructional sessions, the teacher introduces four comprehension strategies: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Then, the teacher and student read several…

As students progress through school they spend more time reading to obtain information. Reading to learn can be a struggle for any student, but it tends to be a bigger obstacle for students with disabilities. Using text-to-speech applications and extensions is one way to assist students with disabilities who struggle to independently complete…

Our contribution to this special issue on reading theory questions the effectiveness of the prevailing interventions intended to improve word-reading and reading comprehension skills in children with reading disability (RD). Our hypothesis is that we as a field may have inadvertently diluted reading theory in ways that compromise the power of…

Dyslexia and other learning disabilities are not being properly recognized and treated in our educational system or society at large. Unrecognized and untreated learning disabilities represent a serious social and economic problem, not only to the individual but to society as a whole. For example, antisocial behavior, as seen in prison populations…

Reading comprehension is a complex skill that places significant demands on students, beginning with elementary school and continuing through the secondary grades. In this article, we provide an overview of possible factors associated with problems in reading comprehension among secondary students with learning disabilities. Discussion underscores…

This randomized controlled trial examined the impacts of "Same-Language-Subtitling" ("SLS"), a karaoke-style subtitling intervention, on the reading comprehension skills of secondary school students in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Researchers randomly assigned 198 secondary school students with learning disabilities (ages 14 to 19) to…

This paper reviews current proposals concerning the definition of dyslexia and contrasts it with reading comprehension impairment. We then discuss methods for early identification and review evidence that teacher assessments and ratings may be valid screening tools. Finally, we argue that interventions should be theoretically motivated and…

Despite enormous improvements in AT devices and services in American classrooms, the number of students with special needs, and the complexity of needs that they and their families experience continues to be sky rocketed nationwide. In response to these urgent needs, more advanced and specialized assistive technologies have been developed that…