Off Track: When Poor Readers Become "Learning Disabled" (Renewing American Schools) - Softcover

Spear-swerling, Louise; Sternberg, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813387574 ISBN 13: 9780813387574

Publisher: Perseus, 1997

Synopsis

The identification of poor readers as "learning disabled" can be the first of many steps toward consigning students to a lifetime of reading failure. The very label that is meant to help children often becomes a burden that works against effective learning throughout their schooling. In this book, the authors identify the dangers of labeling children as reading or learning disabled, contending that a "reading disability" is not a unitary phenomenon. In order to diagnose and help children, educators and parents need to understand the multiple sources of reading difficulty before they can choose appropriate means to correct it. Drawing on recent research in cognitive psychology, the authors present a new theoretical model of reading disability that integrates a wide variety of findings across age and grade spans. Laid out in terms that are readily comprehensible to parents and practitioners, the model outlines the phases that are characteristic of the path to proficient reading, then describes four ways in which disabled readers may stray from this path. The key to the authors' work lies in the fact that youngsters who stray from the path of typical reading acquisition often are not distinguishable from other children who are classified as "poor readers" rather than as "learning disabled." This model is an especially useful one for practitioners because it both provides a broader view of reading disability than have many previous models and shows how reading disability relates to typical reading acquisition. Using illustrative case studies, the authors describe the four patterns of reading disability, explain how to properly assess them, and suggest ways to conquer them.

About this title

From the Publisher

For parents and educators, this book shows how reading disability compares with proficient reading and details new approaches to evaluating and conquering reading problems.

From the Back Cover

"There is no more definitive and readable account of why we have witnessed a huge increase of reading-disabled students - and why we are mostly wrong in framing this and many other academic problems as a disability." --Albert Shanker, President, American Federation of Teachers.

Edition details

• Publisher: Perseus
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0813387574
• ISBN 13: 9780813387574
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 356