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Books for Professionals

A Language Yardstick

by Priscilla Vail

There is no known abstract for this publication.

Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print - A Summary

by Marilyn Adams

Beginning to Read reconciles the debate that has divided theorists for decades over the "right" way to help children learn to read. Drawing on a rich array of research on the nature and development of reading proficiency, Adams shows educators that they need not remain trapped in the phonics versus teaching-for-meaning dilemma. She proposes that phonics can work together with the whole language approach to teaching reading and provides an integrated treatment of the knowledge and process involved in skillful reading, the issues surrounding their acquisition, and the implications for reading instruction.

Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention

by Nancy Mather and Barbara J. Wendling

Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention allows psychologists, graduate students, reading specialists, and others to quickly acquire the knowledge and skills needed to treat individuals struggling with dyslexia. This book provides step-by-step guidance on accurately identifying, assessing, and using evidence-based interventions with individuals with dyslexia. Addressing the components that need to be considered in the assessment of dyslexia—both cognitive and academic—this book includes descriptions of the various tests used in a comprehensive dyslexia assessment along with detailed, evidence-based interventions that professionals and parents can use to help individuals struggling with dyslexia.


A part of the trusted Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, this book features concise chapters designed to facilitate retention of key concepts with callout boxes, bullet points, and extensive illustrations. Additionally, the chapters contain questions to test your knowledge and reinforce what you have learned. This updated second edition covers essential topics for today’s professionals, including genetic factors, reading instruction, technology, and dyslexia in schools.

Everything You Want to Know

by William Van Cleave

This text is an Orton-Gillingham based reference guide. On the right side of each two-page spread is a concept and extensive word lists to support its teaching. On the right side are teaching tips and a cross-referenced list of resources so that teachers can find activities to support instruction. The text includes basic phonetic concepts, spelling patterns, morphology (roots and affixes for vocabulary development), and a series of appendices.

Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can't, and What Can Be Done About It

by Mark Seidenberg

The way we teach reading is not working, and it cannot continue. We have largely abandoned phones-based reading instruction, despite research that supports its importance for word recognition. Rather than treating Black English as a valid dialect and recognizing that speaking one dialect can impact the ability to learn to read in another, teachers simply dismiss it as "incorrect English." And while we press children to develop large vocabularies because we think being a good reader means knowing more words, studies have found that a large vocabulary is only an indication of better pattern recognition. Understanding the science of reading is more important than ever--for us, and for our children. Seidenberg helps us do so by drawing on cutting-edge research in machine learning, linguistics, and early childhood development. Language at the Speed of Sight offers an erudite and scathing examination of this most human of activities, and concrete proposals for how our society can produce better readers.

Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills, 2nd Edition

by Judith Birsh

As new research shows how effective systematic and explicit teaching of language-based skills is for students with learning disabilities—along with the added benefits of multisensory techniques—discover the latest on this popular teaching approach with the third edition of this bestselling textbook. Adopted by colleges and universities across the country, this definitive core text is now fully revised and expanded with cutting-edge research and more on hot topics such as executive function, fluency, and adolescent literacy.

Overcoming Dyslexia (2020 Edition): Second Edition, Completely Revised and Updated

by Sally E. Shaywitz

Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder on the planet, affecting about one in five individuals, regardless of age or gender. Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need.

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum

by Marilyn Adams, Barbara R. Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, and Terri Beeler

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children complements any prereading program. From simple listening games to more advanced exercises in rhyming, alliteration, and segmentation, this best-selling curriculum helps boost young learners' preliteracy skills in just 15-20 minutes a day. Specifically targeting phonemic awareness — now known to be an important step to a child's early reading acquisition — this research-based program helps young children learn to distinguish individual sounds that make up words and affect their meanings. With a developmental sequence of activities that follows a school year calendar, teachers can chose from a range of activities for their preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade classrooms. Plus, the curriculum includes an easy-to-use assessment test for screening up to 15 children at a time. This assessment not only helps to objectively estimate the general skill level of the class and identify children who may need additional testing but may also be repeated every 1-2 months to monitor progress. All children benefit because the curriculum accommodates individualized learning and teaching styles.

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

by Catherine Snow

While most children learn to read fairly well, there remain many young Americans whose futures are imperiled because they do not read well enough to meet the demands of our competitive, technology-driven society. This book explores the problem within the context of social, historical, cultural, and biological factors.

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

by Maryanne Wolf

How do people learn to read and write—and how has the development of these skills transformed the brain and the world itself ? Neuropsychologist and child development expert Maryann Wolf answers these questions in this ambitious and provocative book that chronicles the remarkable journey of written language not only throughout our evolution but also over the course of a single child’s life, showing why a growing percentage have difficulty mastering these abilities. With fascinating down-to-earth examples and lively personal anecdotes, Wolf asserts that the brain that examined the tiny clay tablets of the Sumerians is a very different brain from the one that is immersed in today’s technology-driven literacy, in which visual images on the screen are paving the way for a reduced need for written language—with potentially profound consequences for our future.

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

by Maryanne Wolf

A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.


Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums.

Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

by Stanislas Dehaene

How can a few black marks on a white page evoke an entire universe of sounds and meanings? In this riveting investigation, Stanislas Dehaene provides an accessible account of the brain circuitry of reading and explores what he calls the "reading paradox": Our cortex is the product of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing, so how did it adapt to recognize words? Reading in the Brain describes pioneering research on how we process language, revealing the hidden logic of spelling and the existence of powerful unconscious mechanisms for decoding words of any size, case, or font.

Dehaene's research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, Reading in the Brain is an unparalleled guide to a uniquely human ability.

Speech to Print

by Louisa C. Moats, Ed.D.

For two decades, Speech to Print has been a bestselling, widely adopted textbook on explicit, high-quality literacy instruction. Now the anticipated third edition is here, fully updated with ten years of new research, a complete package of supporting materials, and expanded guidance on the how of assessment and instruction in today's classrooms.

What Reading Research Tells Us About Children with Diverse Learning Needs

by Deborah Simmons and Edward Kaneenui

The purpose of this book is to communicate findings of a research synthesis investigating the bases of reading failure and the curricular and instructional basics to help guide the design and advancement of children's reading performance. The synthesis--completed by the National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators (NCITE) and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs--was conducted as part of NCITE's mission to improve the quality of educational tools that largely shape practice in American schools.

When Writing is a Problem

by Regina Richards

This booklet defines and outlines the stages of writing and dysgraphic symptoms are explained. Guidelines are provided to identify dysgraphic students and specific helps and compensations are recommended. Specific chapters include * Message to students * What is dysgraphia? * The reluctant writer * The subskills for writing * A process approach to writing * Stages of writing development * Appropriate pencil grips * Observable symptoms of dysgraphia * Identifying the dysgraphic student * Recommendations for creative writing, word processing, and voice activated software, and * Compensations

Please note: These books are not in any way formally endorsed by IDA or HBIDA but are recommended by volunteer members and not an exhaustive list of recommendations.
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