Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems

Instructing Students Who Have Literacy Problems has long been valued because it covers both assessment and instructional strategies in a sound, research-based format. It reflects a balanced view of literacy instruction, comprehensively examining both word study and comprehension. It is the definitive research-based book on assessment and instruction of struggling readers. Four complete chapters on formal and informal assessment, plus chapters on instructional interventions, including reading instruction for special populations, allow professors the option of using the book for one inclusive course, or, using it across two courses in those universities where diagnosis and instruction are taught separately. 

Many case studies of students, as well as vignettes of teachers in action, illustrate real-world applications of the textbook content. There are practical strategies suggested in the text for elementary and secondary students and for students from a variety of language backgrounds. This valuable book will successfully guide teachers so they can best help students who have reading difficulties – difficulties of all types and at all levels of severity. 

Sandra McCormick, Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University, is the author of five previous editions of this popular text; the graduate-level textbook, Remedial and Clinical Reading Instruction (Merrill); and numerous articles on delayed readers published in Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Language Arts, and other journals.  Dr. McCormick has served on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association and was coeditor, with Jerry Zutell, of the National Reading Conference Yearbook.

Jerry Zutell is a Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Reading Clinic at The Ohio State University.  He is a noted researcher and writer about oral reading fluency, spelling development, and related instructional practices.  He is the developer of the Directed Thinking Spelling Activity (DSTA), an innovative student-active cycle of word study instruction.  Dr. Zutell is a senior author of Spell It –Write! (Zaner-Bloser, 1998), is the author of the vocabulary series, Word Wisdom (Zaner-Bloser, 2005). and is coauthor, with Timothy Rasinski, of Essential Strategies for Word Study: Effective Methods for Improving Decoding, Spelling, and Vocabulary (Scholastic, 2010).