Recently, a tutor of a struggling reader asked me this question: “Do you have any advice on things to say to calm my student down? Sometimes my student gets in a loop of thinking. He cries and says he hates this tutoring, he can do harder stuff than this, his anger and sadness causes him to be in a place where he cannot learn. I plan to have a variety of activities and books available to have an option when one activity isn’t working. Two sessions ago I stopped the session, b

Regardless of the reading program or strategies you use to encourage reading, I believe we can all agree that the best and most efficient way of improving reading ability is to read more. Like the old adage, practice makes perfect, this holds true with regard to sports as well as reading and other academic performances. Those of us, myself included, with little athletic prowess can attest to the fact that practicing something you are not good at isn’t much fun! Our students w

Empirical research has reinforced the notion that curriculum-based assessment (CBA) procedures result in positive effects on the academic achievement of students with special needs (Jones, Southern, & Brigham, 1998). Although there are different approaches to CBA, there appears to be some commonalities or general features that contribute substantially to instructional effectiveness associated with it. What is CBA? CBA should not be considered an informal procedure, as it is s

In discussing learning disabilities (LD), one may frequently encounter the argument that African-American children, boys in particular, are disproportionately represented in the special education classroom—namely for various learning disabilities (Shealey & Lue, 2006). For example, Skiba, Simmons, Ritter, Gibb, and Rausch (2008) note that, while African American children only account for 17% of the entire student body nationwide, they comprise 33% of the students identified a

This week, I read a graduate student’s plan for a vocabulary lesson. Surprisingly, it included the word gumshoe. I was instantly intrigued. I hadn’t seen or heard any reference to that word in many years, and I probably won’t unless I’m reading an old crime novel or watching a movie on a classic film channel. This got me thinking about all the words I know that are related to gumshoe: private investigator, investigator, P.I., private eye, detective, sleuth, flat foot, and so

As adults, many of us have discovered the value of a good book. Books can provide an escape from the stress of everyday life and are also useful as informational tools. A good book imparts knowledge and understanding; at the end of a story we know something that we did not know before we read the book. For many students with learning disabilities (LD), the opportunity to value books in this way has been missed. The language-based nature of the disorder for most students with