The middle and high school years represent a unique challenge for students who have not yet attained proficiency with word reading. By this time, it is generally expected that students will be able to independently read a variety of texts to gain content knowledge and to read for understanding. Students with or at-risk for learning disabilities…

The term "Science of Reading" (SOR) has become a popular phrase in practitioner circles. To best serve students, it is important that teachers and interventionists are knowledgeable about the SOR. This article provides a special educator's guide to the SOR by reviewing critical elements that have emerged in public discourse about the…

Because deficits in executive functions (EFs) characterize most neurodevelopmental disorders, it is appropriate to question the value of EFs for understanding learning disabilities. Two types of studies--those testing whether EFs moderate treatment effects and those testing the direction of effects between EFs and academic skills--are presented 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,…

As student populations are becoming more diverse in ability and ethnicity across American classrooms, teachers are faced with instructional challenges in meeting their students' learning needs. Challenges are heightened for general and special education teachers who teach students with learning disabilities (LD) and have a culturally and…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a complex initiative which requires the ongoing support and communication of multiple stakeholders (e.g., teachers, administrators, support staff). The purpose of this paper is to examine RTI and direct application of the framework with public school practitioners. The paper is separated into several sections.…

As implementation of multi-tiered systems of support becomes common practice across the nation, practitioners continue to need strategies for intensifying interventions and supports for the subset of students who fail to make adequate progress despite strong programs at Tiers 1 and 2. Experts recommend making several changes to the structure and…

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…

This paper was written to expose the meaning, benefits, and answer why the use of assistive technology for children with learning disabilities. The paper discussed the various types of assistive technology devices that were designed and used to solve written language, reading, listening, memory and mathematic problems of children with learning…

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 article discusses the lingering problem of poor and inappropriate preparation of professional teachers of reading and learning disabilities--why it exists and what we can do about it. Because most students classified as having learning disabilities experience primary difficulties with language-based learning, teachers must know how to teach…