Inclusion of students with learning disabilities in regular education is explored as it relates to the in-class reading specialist. Issues discussed include the necessity for preservice and inservice preparation for assuming coteaching roles, the importance of personal empowerment of reading specialists, and the need for meaningful integration of…

Two types of instructional adaptation were explored: routine adaptation (the extent to which teachers establish initial routines to facilitate ongoing adaptation) and specialized adaptation (how teachers modify instructional plans in light of student difficulty). Participants were 110 general educators. (Author/SM)

This book describes FIRST (Focussed Instruction in Reading for Successful Teaching) Reading, a computer program that takes answers to 20 questions about a learner and matches this profile against profiles in the database. FIRST Reading, formerly called "Consult Reading," can recommend the most-likely-to-succeed teaching focus(es) for…

This practicum was designed to improve the reading and language arts skills of students, not already served by special education programs, who were demonstrating difficulties in the regular education classroom and were at risk for poor or failing school performance. Solution strategies utilized for this practicum included a collaborative…

As studies indicate that dialect usage is not a barrier to reading, teachers can create an effective reading program for black students not by giving instruction in standard English, but by changing their own attitude toward black dialect. Showing that dialect users reencode standard English into their own language patterns when reading orally, Y.…

Findings from a synthesis of 27 intervention studies that examined the effects of school-based reading interventions for kindergarten students at-risk for reading difficulties are reported. Results indicated that reading interventions were effective for improving reading outcomes for kindergarten students with disabilities and those at-risk for…

Drawing from the literature on reading research and theories, this paper discusses the problems of community college students with severe reading/writing deficits, reviews the advantages and limitations of various approaches to reading instruction, and suggests a new method of word decoding. First, the paper explores the difficulties facing the…

"Now Johnny CAN Learn to Read" is an easy-to-read book intended for anyone involved in helping others learn to read. An initial section of the book focuses on how to make reading a socially stimulating, successful activity. In this section, viewpoints are shared from a child and a parent, and a reading specialist tells of the successes…

To increase the reading achievement of a group of first grade students expected to experience reading difficulties during their first grade year, a practicum study involved the collaboration of a school psychologist with teachers, parents, and fifth graders (in cross age tutoring) to provide services emphasizing holistic, literature-based…

Focusing on the personality of the reading disabled child, this booklet is designed to encourage researchers to move past the circular debate concerning student reading difficulties and to help teachers improve the reading performance of students with disabling stress reactions to reading. The first section examines research related to emotional…

Intended to help classroom teachers, curriculum developers, and researchers, this book provides current information on theoretical and instructional aspects of main idea comprehension. Titles and authors are as follows: "The Confused World of Main Idea" (James W. Cunningham and David W. Moore); "The Comprehension of Important…

Disadvantaged secondary school students with special reading needs can be motivated in the reading room. The school year can start with "popcorn" reading involving materials that are funny, interesting, and exciting. The teacher reads to the students or the students read silently, using materials on the students' independent rather than…

Research on children's oral reading errors provides evidence that both top down and bottom up processes interactively contribute to reading. Syntactic and semantic expectations are sources of information for top down processing, while knowledge of letter-sound relations provides information for bottom up processing. As children learn to read,…

Reading improvement programs that have focused on additional staff for teaching, tutoring, and counseling; prescriptive, self-paced learning methods; unstructured open-education strategies; and intensive reading have often been successful in small towns and middle sized cities, but none has made a major impact on the reading achievement of…

That the attainment of literacy does not represent a unitary process or a unitary set of skills is reflected in this collection of papers from a variety of disciplines showing concerns about reading problems. Following an introduction by Sheila White, the first half of the book contains the following articles: "The Practice of Literacy: Where Mind…