Laws, practices, and research about reading difficulties have been gradually and rapidly changing since the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1974. It is difficult for schools to keep up, especially when it takes approximately 16 years for research to reach widespread public knowledge. In this article, I frame the…

Reading comprehension is contingent upon the integration of various reading skills, including word reading, reading fluency, and comprehension strategies. Students who encounter challenges in both word reading and reading comprehension present an opportunity for growth across multiple reading-related domains. Recent intervention data, as…

More and more students with learning disabilities and other diverse learners are placed for instruction in general education classrooms, which often leaves teachers grappling to design successful peer interactions and literacy activities to meet the needs of all learners in their classrooms. As the shift is made to align literacy instruction to…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multiple tiered system of instructional interventions that may also serve to identify children with Specific Learning Disabilities (particularly in reading and spelling). This article summarizes the findings of Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading (Balu, Zhu, Doolittle,…

A recent survey on implementation of Response to Instruction/Intervention (RTI) found 94% of participating schools implementing some level of RTI ("Global Scholar," 2011). Therefore, it is logical to assume that most educators have heard about the concepts at the heart of RTI, even though specific iterations and names of the frameworks…

It takes a literacy leader to save some schools and districts from serious misconceptions about the nature of core reading programs as well as the nature of some reading disabilities. Well-prepared professionals can, by means of their extensive pedagogical repertoire, help districts to avoid compulsive repetition of the same fundamental types of…

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 encourages schools to use interventions to ensure that students' literacy difficulties are not instructional problems before assuming a learning disability. The law frames these interventions in two ways: as a strategy for identifying students with learning disabilities--a measurement…

Limited vocabulary knowledge has been cited as a key factor in the literacy achievement gap, particularly for students with learning disabilities, students of color, and English-language learners. Recent authorities have recommended multipronged approaches to assist vocabulary growth in classrooms. In addition, authorities have called for…

Two struggling fourth-grade readers with learning disabilities who have severe deficits in word recognition, comprehension, and reading fluency improve their reading skills using a method that combines intensive word study with the timed repeated reading of poetry. The direct instruction included semantics, morphology, orthography, and…

Since the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (2004), the use of Response to Intervention (RTI) in the identification of students suspected of having learning disabilities has been legitimized. Several professional organizations, including the International Reading Association (IRA), have recognized the importance of…

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…

Reviews four professional resources about dyslexia and learning disabilities that differ in perspective but have many commonalities in their advice to teachers. (MG)

Notes that in order for full inclusion to occur, children must become genuine members of the class. Discusses how they should be fully engaged and accepted by their peers, not just treated politely and professionally by their teachers. Suggests that it is necessary to break barriers and accept the worries, the fears, the concerns, and the…

States that the term "reading disability" is a disease metaphor that narrows our ability to work with failure and that it is necessary to diagnosis a child's reading problem accurately in order to treat the problem adequately. (MKM)

Argues that perhaps 15 to 20 percent of reading and learning disorders are rooted in emotional difficulties. (FL)