Dyslexia is a disorder of the language-processing systems in the brain. It is a specific learning disability in reading that often affects spelling as well. This article describes: (1) Common characteristics experienced by people with dyslexia or reading disabilities; (2) Common misconceptions about dyslexia; (3) What brain research tell us about…

Describes the way in which reading was taught to three nonverbal autistic children, the motivation used, and the children's adaptation to the learning situation. (FL)

Describes Marie Clay's word boxes that help children attend to phonological and orthographic features of words, developing phonemic awareness and improving word recognition and spelling. Describes a study showing that the use of word boxes with several elementary school students with learning disabilities was effective for improving and…

Concludes that poor readers' comprehension of stories was improved by instruction that focused on causal structure, but that a few learners still struggling with basic decoding were too preoccupied to attend to story structure. (FL)

Concludes that while any of several types of remedial tutoring was successful with fourth grade remedial readers, children who were merely left in the regular classroom made equal gains. (FL)

Summarizes award winning research reports dealing with (1) learning disabilities and reading; (2) teaching critical reading in Brazil; (3) culture, language, school, and literacy; (4) the development of discourse-synthesizing abilities; (5) the acquisition of word meaning from context by high and low ability children; and (6) reciprocal teaching.…

Discusses the use of analogy strategies, which involve comparing word parts to other known words, to teach reading. Reports on a study that showed positive effects from teaching analogy strategies to second-grade students and to learning disabled fifth-grade students. (FL)

Shows that mentally handicapped preschool children can learn to read words when word cards become tools for communicating their wishes. Indicates also that language skills improve and that these transfer to other situations. (FL)