William M. Cruickshank (e.g., Cruickshank 1952, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1985) was a man of strong opinions and a prolific writer. Not only did he contribute to the very beginning of the field of learning disabilities (LD), he strongly advocated for students with LD. He firmly believed that students with learning disabilities needed very competent…

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…

Teaching students the most frequent sounds of the alphabet letters is the first crucial step in good phonics instruction. But beginning letter and sound lessons, especially if poorly taught or too rapidly paced, can be overwhelming and confusing for some young children and struggling readers. How can we simplify the cognitive task for such…

Previous efforts at leveling the learning field for all students have not met with success. In 1955 Johnny allegedly could not read because of the "look-and-say method" of teaching reading; 26 years later he still could not read because most elementary schools continued to use the aforementioned unproductive system. Perhaps now is…

The author discusses the difficulty of noncontent words for children with poor reading skills and advocates a sentence-based program of instruction which has been successfully used to teach noncontent words to learning/language disabled children from 6 to 12 years old. (CL)

The paper reports on multisensory approaches to reading instruction of learning disabled children. G. Fernald's "tracing" method, also known as the V-A-K-T method, is described and research questioning its effectiveness is cited. Next, the Adapted Fernald Technique (AFT) which requires the student to write, illustrate, read and reread…

The seventh of eight related documents, this booklet is part of a series of papers presented at the 1978 National Right to Read Conference examining issues and problems in literacy. In examining the literacy needs of the handicapped, this booklet notes diagnostic imprecision and political ineffectiveness as disadvantages in adopting the single…

A study involving 48 primary grade learning disabled (LD) students was undertaken to determine the effects of word segmentation on reading transfer performance. Ss received training in one of three methods: final consonant segmented method (space between medial vowel and final consonant); initial consonant segmented method (space between the…

Presented at the Montgomery County (PA) Intermediate Unit Conference on Learning Disabilities in the Secondary Schools, 1975, the paper presents a review of the literature on reading problems of learning disabled secondary students. Aspects covered include identification issues in learning disabilities, models of the reading process and of…

The paper focuses on reading-disabled students with emphasis on the need for theory-driven research and improvements in the training of teachers in reading instruction. Among abilities that should be tested in research on causes of reading disability are the child's understanding of the phonological structure of written language, a specifically…

This paper discusses the placement, remediation, and management of the learning disabled child. The procedure for a professional assessment of the learning disabled child includes: (1) noting potentially dangerous signs such as poor visual and/or auditory memory for words, consistent letter or number reversals beyond the primary grades, short…

The "Sound of the Day" is a color stimulation method of teaching reading in English, Chinese (both the characters and the orthographical pin-yin), and other languages. The method involves reviewing previously learned sounds, introducing a new sound each day, learning four new words which begin with the same sound, and then drawing and coloring…

Reviewed in this paper are some of the aspects of Australian practices and research activities in learning disabilities conducted over the past decade. Special emphasis is given to the diagnosis and treatment of children with severe reading problems. The influence of instruments such as the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities on the…

In 1994, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) discovered that reading difficulties permeate all segments of the school-aged population. As a result, Congress asked the director of the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) and the former Secretary of Education to assemble a panel on reading. This National…

A literature review was conducted to determine the meaning, symptoms, causes, and treatment of dyslexia. The review revealed that dyslexia simply means "distorted words," and is the inability to read either phonetically or visually. Among the symptoms of dyslexia disclosed by the review are motion sickness, retardation in reading of from 6 months…