Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties, First Edition: The Interactive Strategies Approach (Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy)

This book presents a research-supported framework for early literacy instruction that aligns with multi-tiered response-to-intervention (RTI) models. The book focuses on giving teachers a better understanding of literacy development and how to effectively support children as they begin to read and write. The authors' interactive strategies approach is designed around essential instructional goals related both to learning to identify words and to comprehending text. Detailed guidance is provided on ways to target these goals with K–2 students at risk for reading difficulties. Assessment and instructional strategies for whole-class, small-group, and one-to-one settings are discussed in depth. Numerous reproducible forms for documenting student learning are included.

Donna M. Scanlon, PhD, is Professor in the Reading Department at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Dr. Scanlon has spent most of her career studying children's reading difficulties. Her studies have focused on the relationships between instructional characteristics and success in learning to read and on developing and evaluating approaches to preventing early reading difficulties. Findings from studies that she and her colleagues conducted have contributed to the emergence of response to intervention as a process for preventing reading difficulties and avoiding inappropriate and inaccurate learning disability classifications. Most recently, Dr. Scanlon's work has focused on the development of teacher knowledge and teaching skill among both preservice and inservice teachers for the purpose of helping teachers to prevent reading difficulties.

Kimberly L. Anderson, PhD, is a research associate in the Child Research and Study Center at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and an adjunct instructor in the University's Reading Department. Dr. Anderson has contributed to the Center's research on the interactive strategies approach (ISA) by serving as an intervention teacher; by providing professional development for teachers learning to implement the ISA in the early primary grades in both classroom and intervention settings; and, most recently, by collaborating with preservice educators from institutions across New York on enhancing preservice teacher knowledge related to literacy instruction. She worked for many years as a school psychologist at the elementary level and has spent several years as a reading teacher at the primary level, utilizing the ISA to provide small-group intervention to kindergartners and first-grade students.

Joan M. Sweeney, MSEd, is a reading teacher in the North Colonie Central School District in Latham, New York. Previously, she was a research associate in the Child Research and Study Center at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where she provided intervention for struggling readers, supervised intervention teachers, and coached classroom teachers utilizing the ISA to support children's literacy development.