This book is designed to provide teachers with the knowledge and strategies they need to improve the reading skills of students who aren’t making adequate progress with regular classroom instruction. Based on the results of years of empirical research on reading instruction for students with disabilities, this book uses the framework of “focused intervention” to conceptualize how to help struggling students close the reading gap between them and their typical peers. In each chapter the research is examined, and effective instructional strategies are presented and discussed. Videos, interactive features, tables, charts, and lesson plans are all provided to make implementation easy. Each chapter closes with dozens of activities that can help students get the kind of engaging, hands-on practice they need to become proficient readers, and considerations for older readers and students with intellectual disabilities are reviewed as well. Demonstration videos of select instructional activities are available in two courses on iTunes U. These are free classes designed to compliment this textbook. Please download the iTunes U app and search titles: “Decoding and Fluency for Struggling Readers” and “Vocabulary and Comprehension for Struggling Readers”.
