Comprehensive, authoritative, and designed for practical utility, this handbook presents evidence-based approaches for helping struggling readers and those at risk for literacy difficulties or delays. Leading experts explain how current research on all aspects of literacy translates into innovative classroom practices. Chapters include clear descriptions of effective interventions for word recognition, spelling, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing, complete with concrete examples and teaching scripts. Coverage also encompasses preschool literacy instruction and interventions for older readers, English language learners, and students with learning disabilities, as well as peer-mediated and tutoring approaches. This book will be invaluable to reading specialists, classroom teachers and special educators, researchers and instructors in literacy. It may also serve as a supplemental text in graduate-level courses.

Rollanda E. O'Connor, PhD, is Professor of Education at the University of California, Riverside. She taught reading in special and general education classrooms for many years and has conducted numerous intervention studies in special and general education settings, explored procedures to predict in kindergarten and first grade which children are likely to develop reading difficulties, and followed the reading progress of children who received early intervention. Her longitudinal studies of intervention and assessment led to the development (with Patricia F. Vadasy) of Ladders to Literacy, a collection of phonological and print awareness activities and scaffolding suggestions for children at risk for reading problems, and the book Teaching Word Recognition: Effective Strategies for Students with Learning Difficulties. Dr. O'Connor's current research includes evaluating the effects of early, continuous intervention across the first 4 years of schooling and developing research-based interventions for students with reading difficulties in the intermediate grades. Patricia F. Vadasy, PhD, is Senior Researcher at the Washington Research Institute in Seattle, Washington. Her background is in early reading acquisition and instruction, instructional design, and intervention research. Dr. Vadasy oversees a research team engaged in research on effective school-based literacy interventions for at-risk and struggling students. She has published findings on her grant-funded intervention research widely in peer-reviewed journals. She is the lead author (with Rollanda E. O'Connor) of the Sound Partners code-oriented supplemental tutoring program and coauthor (with Rollanda E. O'Connor) of the Ladders to Literacy preschool and kindergarten programs.

1. Introduction, Patricia F. Vadasy and Rollanda E. O\u2019Connor 2. Phoneme Awareness and the Alphabetic Principle, Rollanda E. O\u2019Connor 3. Preschool Foundations for Reading and Writing Success, Theresa A. Roberts 4. Phases in Reading Words and Phonics Interventions, Louise Spear-Swerling 5. Morphemic Approaches for Reading Words, Terezinha Nunes and Peter Bryant 6. Teaching Spelling to Students with Learning Difficulties, Michael M. Gerber and Catherine Richards-Tutor 7. Making Vocabulary Interventions Engaging and Effective, Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck 8. Fluency Problems: When, Why, and How to Intervene, Roxanne Hudson 9. Main Idea and Summarization Instruction to Improve Reading Comprehension, Asha K. Jitendra and Meenakshi Gajria 10. Metacognition to Improve Reading Comprehension, Janette K. Klingner, Ann Morrison, and Amy Eppolito 11. Teaching Narrative and Expository Text Structure to Improve Comprehension, Joanna P. Williams and Lisa S. Pao 12. Peer-Mediated Approaches, Mary Abbott, Charles R. Greenwood, Jay Buzhardt, Howard P. Wills, and Barbara Terry 13. Supplemental Reading Instruction by Paraeducators and Tutors: Recent Research and Applications, Patricia F. Vadasy 14. On the Comprehension and Production of Written Texts: Instructional Activities That Support Content-Area Literacy, Ralph P. Ferretti and Susan De La Paz 15. Cultural Aspects of Teaching Reading with Latino English Language Learners, Michael J. Orosco and Rollanda E. O\u2019Connor 16. Teaching Older Students to Read, Rollanda E. O\u2019Connor and Vanessa Goodwin