Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties E-Book

David A. Kilpatrick

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Essentials of Psychological Assessment
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 829

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Practical, effective, evidence-based reading interventions that change students' lives Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties is a practical, accessible, in-depth guide to reading assessment and intervention. It provides a detailed discussion of the nature and causes of reading difficulties, which will help develop the knowledge and confidence needed to accurately assess why a student is struggling. Readers will learn a framework for organizing testing results from current assessment batteries such as the WJ-IV, KTEA-3, and CTOPP-2. Case studies illustrate each of the concepts covered. A thorough discussion is provided on the assessment of phonics skills, phonological awareness, word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Formatted for easy reading as well as quick reference, the text includes bullet points, icons, callout boxes, and other design elements to call attention to important information. Although a substantial amount of research has shown that most reading difficulties can be prevented or corrected, standard reading remediation efforts have proven largely ineffective. School psychologists are routinely called upon to evaluate students with reading difficulties and to make recommendations to address such difficulties. This book provides an overview of the best assessment and intervention techniques, backed by the most current research findings. * Bridge the gap between research and practice * Accurately assess the reason(s) why a student struggles in reading * Improve reading skills using the most highly effective evidence-based techniques Reading may well be the most important thing students are taught during their school careers. It is a skill they will use every day of their lives; one that will dictate, in part, later life success. Struggling students need help now, and Essentials of Understanding and Assessing Reading Difficulties shows how to get these students on track.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Series Preface

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: Introduction

The Unfair Race

The Importance of Reading

The Gap Between Reading Research and Classroom Practice

The Unfortunate Reality About Reading Research: Nobody Knows About It!

Why Is There a Gap Between Research and Classroom Practice?

The Powerful Research Results We Have Been Missing

Acknowledging and Responding to the Gap Between Research and Practice

Summary

Chapter Two: How We Teach Reading and Why It Does Not Work With Struggling Readers

A Very Brief History of Reading Instruction

Why Our Current Approaches to Reading Instruction Are Ineffective With Struggling Readers

The Visual Memory Hypothesis of Word Reading

The Three Cueing Systems Model of Reading

The Phonics Approach to Reading

Summary

Chapter Three: A Practical Framework for Understanding and Assessing Reading Skills

The Simple View of Reading

Types of Reading Difficulties/Disabilities

The Components of Reading

The Components of Word-Level Reading

The Components of Linguistic Comprehension

Summary

Chapter Four: Understanding Word Recognition Difficulties

The Importance of This Chapter

Introducing Orthographic Mapping

How Skilled Word Reading Develops

The Early Stages of the Reading Process

Learning to Read Irregular Words

The Research on Orthographic Mapping

How the Phonological-Core Deficit Hinders Reading Development

Word-Reading Fluency and Orthographic Mapping

Students Whose Native Language Is Not English

Answers to the Questions Posed About Reading Difficulties

Summary

Chapter Five: Understanding Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Specific Reading Comprehension Impairment

What Is Required for Skilled Reading Comprehension?

Reader Abilities

Text Factors

Task Factors

Students Whose First Language Is Not English

Summary

Chapter Six: Assessing Phonological Processing Skills

An Introduction to Intervention-Oriented Assessment of Reading

Issues in Assessing Phonological Skills

Phonological Awareness Assessment

Phonological Blending Assessment

The Rationale for Assessing Rapid Automatized Naming and Working Memory

Summary

Chapter Seven: Assessing Phonics Skills

Orthographic Knowledge

Assessing Phonics Skills

Summary

Chapter Eight: Assessing Word Identification and Reading Fluency

The Assessment of Word-Reading Skills

Untangling the Confound Between Word Recognition and Word Identification

Word Identification Subtests

The Assessment of Word-Reading Fluency

Types of Fluency Tasks

Summary

Chapter Nine: Assessing Reading Comprehension and Related Skills

Reading Comprehension Assessment

Tests of Reading Comprehension

Tests of Listening Comprehension

Assessment of Skills That Contribute to Reading Comprehension and Listening Comprehension

Summary

Chapter Ten: Effective Approaches for Preventing Reading Difficulties

Prevention: Removing the Hurdles Before the Race Begins

Experimental Support for Phonological Awareness Instruction

Experimental Support for Explicit and Systematic Letter-Sound Instruction

Practical Considerations Regarding Teaching Letter-Sound Skills and Phonics

The Centrality of Phonology in Word Reading

Phonological Awareness Training Programs

Preventing Literacy-Related Language Difficulties

Summary

Chapter Eleven: Effective Approaches for Overcoming or Minimizing Reading Difficulties

Intervention with Word-Level Reading Difficulties

Popular Reading Interventions With Modest or Minimal Results

Reading Intervention Research With Minimal to Modest Results

The Phonological Awareness Intervention Continuum

Reading Intervention Studies with Highly Successful Results

Specific Programs Used in Highly Successful Outcome Studies

Addressing Comprehension Difficulties

Making It Work: Practical Intervention Issues

Summary

Chapter Twelve: Case Illustrations

Mild Dyslexic Pattern

Severe Dyslexic Pattern

ELL Student

Compensator Pattern

Hyperlexic Type

Summary

Chapter Thirteen: Reading Difficulties and Learning Disability Identification

Far Fewer Students with SLD?

Characteristics That Suggest an Educational Disability—Part 1: SLD in Word-Level Reading

Characteristics That Suggest an Educational Disability—Part 2: Reading Comprehension

General Guidelines for Identifying a Reading Disability

Summary

Afterword

Glossary

Further Reading

References

About the Author

About the Online Resources

Content Included in the Online Resources

Index

End User License Agreement

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

Begin Reading

List of Illustrations

Chapter Two: How We Teach Reading and Why It Does Not Work With Struggling Readers

Figure 2.1 Terminology Related to Word-Level Reading

Figure 2.2 A Sampling of Some of the Many Possible Visual Forms of “Reading”

Chapter Three: A Practical Framework for Understanding and Assessing Reading Skills

Figure 3.1 English Words in Non-English Scripts

Figure 3.2 Two Questions to Consider When Students Display Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Figure 3.3 Types of Reading Difficulties Organized Under the Simple View of Reading

Figure 3.4 Common Skill Pattern of Compensating Readers (Mean Performances)

Figure 3.5 Reading and Its Components Based on the Original Formulation of the Simple View of Reading

Figure 3.6 A Sample of a Rapid Naming Task With Digits

Figure 3.7 Word-Level Reading in an Expanded Simple View of Reading

Figure 3.8 The Components of Linguistic Comprehension in an Expanded Simple View of Reading

Chapter Four: Understanding Word Recognition Difficulties

Figure 4.1 Skills Involved in Letter-Name and Letter-Sound Knowledge

Figure 4.2 Phonic Decoding. The contribution of letter-sound knowledge and phonological blending to activate the spoken form of words

Figure 4.3 The Orthographic Mapping/Sight Word Learning Process. Sounds in the phonological lexicon map onto letters via phoneme awareness/analysis to produce an orthographic memory of written words

Figure 4.4 The Orthographic Mapping Process. Whole-word pronunciations are phonemically analyzed and then connected with printed letter strings

Chapter Six: Assessing Phonological Processing Skills

Figure 6.1 A Comparison of Four Phonological Awareness Subtests with 67 Students in the Winter/Spring of First Grade

Figure 6.2 A Comparison of Four Phonological Awareness Subtests with 50 Students in the Winter/Spring of Second Grade

Chapter Ten: Effective Approaches for Preventing Reading Difficulties

Figure 10.1 Developmental Teaching Hierarchy for Phonological Awareness Skills

List of Tables

Chapter Two: How We Teach Reading and Why It Does Not Work With Struggling Readers

Table 2.1 What the Three Classic Reading Approaches Have to Say (or Not Say) About Word Identification Versus Word Recognition

Chapter Four: Understanding Word Recognition Difficulties

Table 4.1 The Most Common English Words That Contain More Than One Irregular Letter-to-Sound Correspondence

Chapter Eight: Assessing Word Identification and Reading Fluency

Table 8.1 The Type of Lines a Student Sees on the TOSWRF-2 Representing Three Levels of Difficulty (None Are Actual Lines From the Test)

Chapter Ten: Effective Approaches for Preventing Reading Difficulties

Table 10.1 Comparisons of Groupings in the Bradley and Bryant (1983), Ball and Blachman (1988) and Cunningham (1990) Studies

Chapter Twelve: Case Illustrations

Table 12.1 List of Abbreviations for Tests

Table 12.2 Eugene—November of Grade 2 (2003)

Table 12.3 Karen—May of Grade 6 (2011)

Table 12.4 Tim—June of Grade 8 (2010)

Table 12.5 Jim—December of Grade 6 (2010)

Table 12.6 Sean—September of Grade 3 (2005)

Table 12.7 Norma—May of Grade 6 (2009)

Essentials of Psychological Assessment Series

Series Editors, Alan S. Kaufman and Nadeen L. Kaufman

Essentials of 16 PF® Assessmentby Heather E.-P. Cattell and James M. Schuerger

Essentials of ADHD Assessment for Children and Adolescents by Elizabeth P. Sparrow and Drew Erhardt

Essentials of Assessment Report Writing by Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger, Nancy Mather, Nadeen L. Kaufman, and Alan S. Kaufman

Essentials of Assessment with Brief Intelligence Testsby Susan R. Homack and Cecil R. Reynolds

Essentials of Autism Spectrum Disorders Evaluation and Assessmentby Celine A. Saulnier and Pamela E. Ventola

Essentials of Bayley Scales of Infant Development–II Assessmentby Maureen M. Black and Kathleen Matula

Essentials of Behavioral Assessmentby Michael C. Ramsay, Cecil R. Reynolds, and R. W. Kamphaus

Essentials of Career Interest Assessmentby Jeffrey P. Prince and Lisa J. Heiser

Essentials of CAS Assessmentby Jack A. Naglieri

Essentials of Cognitive Assessment with KAIT and Other Kaufman Measuresby Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger, Debra Broadbooks, and Alan S. Kaufman

Essentials of Conners Behavior Assessments™by Elizabeth P. Sparrow

Essentials of Creativity Assessmentby James C. Kaufman, Jonathan A. Plucker, and John Baer

Essentials of Cross-Battery Assessment, Third Editionby Dawn P. Flanagan, Samuel O. Ortiz, and Vincent C. Alfonso

Essentials of DAS-II® Assessmentby Ron Dumont, John O. Willis, and Colin D. Elliot

Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Interventionby Nancy Mather and Barbara J. Wendling

Essentials of Evidence-Based Academic Interventionsby Barbara J. Wendling and Nancy Mather

Essentials of Executive Functions Assessmentby George McCloskey and Lisa A. Perkins

Essentials of Forensic Psychological Assessment, Second Editionby Marc J. Ackerman

Essentials of IDEA for Assessment Professionalsby Guy McBride, Ron Dumont, and John O. Willis

Essentials of Individual Achievement Assessmentby Douglas K. Smith

Essentials of KABC-II Assessmentby Alan S. Kaufman, Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger, Elaine Fletcher-Janzen, and Nadeen L. Kaufman

Essentials of Millon™ Inventories Assessment, Third Editionby Stephen Strack

Essentials of MMPI-A™ Assessmentby Robert P. Archer and Radhika Krishnamurthy

Essentials of MMPI-2® Assessment, Second Editionby David S. Nichols

Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Assessment, Second Editionby Naomi Quenk

Essentials of NEPSY® -II Assessmentby Sally L. Kemp and Marit Korkman

Essentials of Neuropsychological Assessment, Second Editionby Nancy Hebben and William Milberg

Essentials of Nonverbal Assessmentby Steve McCallum, Bruce Bracken, and John Wasserman

Essentials of PAI® Assessmentby Leslie C. Morey

Essentials of Planning, Selecting, and Tailoring Interventions for Unique Learnersedited by Jennifer T. Mascolo, Vincent C. Alfonso, and Dawn P. Flanagan

Essentials of Processing Assessment, Second Editionby Milton J. Dehn

Essentials of Response to Interventionby Amanda M. VanDerHeyden and Matthew K. Burns

Essentials of Rorschach® Assessmentby Tara Rose, Nancy Kaser-Boyd, and Michael P. Maloney

Essentials of School Neuropsychological Assessment, Second Editionby Daniel C. Miller

Essentials of Specific Learning Disability Identificationby Dawn Flanagan and Vincent C. Alfonso

Essentials of Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5) Assessmentby Gale H. Roid and R. Andrew Barram

Essentials of TAT and Other Storytelling Assessments, Second Editionby Hedwig Teglasi

Essentials of Temperament Assessmentby Diana Joyce

Essentials of WAIS® -IV Assessment, Second Editionby Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger and Alan S. Kaufman

Essentials of WIAT® -III and KTEA-II Assessmentby Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger and Kristina C. Breaux

Essentials of WISC® -IV Assessment, Second Editionby Dawn P. Flanagan and Alan S. Kaufman

Essentials of WJ III™ Cognitive Abilities Assessment, Second Editionby Fredrick A. Schrank, Daniel C. Miller, Barbara J. Wendling, and Richard W. Woodcock

Essentials of WJ IV™ Tests of Achievement Assessmentby Nancy Mather and Barbara J. Wendling

Essentials of WMS® -IV Assessmentby Lisa Whipple Drozdick, James A. Holdnack, and Robin C. Hilsabeck

Essentials of WNV™ Assessmentby Kimberly A. Brunnert, Jack A. Naglieri, and Steven T. Hardy-Braz

Essentials of WPPSI™ -IV Assessmentby Susan Engi Raiford and Diane Coalson

Essentials of WRAML2 and TOMAL-2 Assessmentby Wayne Adams and Cecil R. Reynolds

Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties

David A. Kilpatrick

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Kilpatrick, David A.

Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties / David A. Kilpatrick.

pages cm. – (Essentials of psychological assessment)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-84524-0 (paperback) – ISBN 978-1-118-84540-0 (epdf ) – ISBN 978-1-118-84528-8 (epub)

1. Reading. 2. Language and languages. I. Title.

LB1050.K493 2015

372.41–dc23

2015013485

Cover image: © Greg Kuchik/Getty Images

Cover design: Wiley

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To Dr. Philip J. McInnis, Sr., In MemoriamA pioneer in applying research findings to classroom practiceandTo Carol Byrnes-Troendle, In MemoriamA resource teacher whose energy, enthusiasm, and dedication were aninspiration to all who knew her

Series Preface

In the Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, we have attempted to provide the reader with books that will deliver key practical information in the most efficient and accessible style. Many books in the series feature specific instruments in a variety of domains, such as cognition, personality, education, and neuropsychology. Other books, such as Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties, focus on crucial topics for professionals who are involved with assessment in any way—topics such as specific reading disabilities, evidence-based interventions, or ADHD assessment. For the experienced professional, books in the series offer a concise yet thorough review of a test instrument or a specific area of expertise, including numerous tips for best practices. Students can turn to series books for a clear and concise overview of the important assessment tools and key topics in which they must become proficient to practice skillfully, efficiently, and ethically in their chosen fields.

Wherever feasible, visual cues highlighting key points are utilized alongside systematic, step-by-step guidelines. Chapters are focused and succinct. Topics are organized for an easy understanding of the essential material related to a particular test or topic. Theory and research are continually woven into the fabric of each book, but always to enhance the practical application of the material, rather than to sidetrack or overwhelm readers. With this series, we aim to challenge and assist readers interested in psychological assessment to aspire to the highest level of competency by arming them with the tools they need for knowledgeable, informed practice. We have long been advocates of “intelligent” testing—the notion that numbers are meaningless unless they are brought to life by the clinical acumen and expertise of examiners. Assessment must be used to make a difference in the child's or adult's life, or why bother to test? All books in the series—whether devoted to specific tests or general topics—are consistent with this credo. We want this series to help our readers, novice and veteran alike, to benefit from the intelligent assessment approaches of the authors of each book.

In the present volume, David Kilpatrick, an expert and experienced clinician who excels in reading assessment and intervention, provides a window into the vast world of research into reading acquisition and reading disabilities. Research reports in this area number in the thousands. Rather than a global survey, this volume presents information that is directly relevant for understanding and assessing students who present with various types of reading difficulties. With the material in this volume as a guide, practitioners can use standard psychoeducational assessment tools and approaches to more precisely determine the reasons why these students struggle in reading. The author shows how such assessment information can lead directly to well-targeted and highly effective reading interventions.

Alan S. Kaufman, PhD, and Nadeen L. Kaufman, EdD, Series EditorsYale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine

Preface

Reading difficulties represent one of the most common referral issues in schools. School psychologists, literacy specialists, special education teachers, and other educational professionals are routinely called upon to evaluate students with reading problems and to generate intervention plans. The present volume is designed to assist such professionals by opening up a vast and largely untapped body of empirical research on reading acquisition and reading difficulties. There have been literally thousands of research studies in the last four decades on all aspects of reading, but only small bits and pieces seem to make their way out of the scientific journals and into our K–12 classrooms.

To illustrate this, studies of the most common intervention practices used for struggling readers show that those interventions result in an average improvement of 2 to 5 standard score points. By contrast, some of the research coming from federal intervention grant initiatives indicate average improvements of 12 to 25 standard score points that are maintained at 2-, 3-, or 4-year follow-ups (see Chapters 10 and 11). The fact that we are not seeing average gains like these in our schools demonstrates why I referred to this research as “largely untapped.”

In 1997, after I had been a practicing school psychologist for nearly a decade, Dr. Philip J. McInnis, a former president of the New York Association of School Psychologists, introduced me to the top scientific journals publishing research on reading. Being an adjunct lecturer in psychology at the time, I had access to these journals, which allowed me to vigorously pursue this area. In addition, McInnis asked me to travel with him for a few summers to his workshops in school districts around the northeastern United States. These districts had been using his Assured Readiness for Learning program. McInnis's program simply involved translating the research with the best-available outcomes into a practical curriculum for teachers. I got to meet administrators and teachers who were very excited to share how they had dramatically reduced the number of struggling readers in their schools. McInnis used to publicly claim that his program would reduce the number of struggling readers by 50%. Privately he said it was closer to 75%. I asked why he did not say this publicly. He replied that educators had a hard enough time believing his 50% claims so he felt he would lose all credibility if he publicized the actual results! Although McInnis's claims may sound outlandish to the average educator, they are not. Some of the most successful studies reported in the literature have demonstrated across-the-board reductions in the number of struggling readers by 70%–80% or more (e.g., Shapiro & Solity, 2008; Vellutino et al., 1996). McInnis had such good results because was applying approaches from research studies that had displayed similar impressive results. McInnis passed away in March of 2002, and his highly effective program has been largely inactive and not promoted since that time.

Since 1997 I have also endeavored to integrate the reading research into my assessment practices. I developed what I call intervention-oriented assessment, which involves determining why a student struggles in reading. The reading research field has fairly well-established knowledge about the component skills needed for success in reading, and I have tried to align my assessment practices with those findings. Chapters 6 through 9 are a reflection of those efforts.

What I believe to be the most important contribution of this book is the presentation of orthographic mapping in Chapter 4. Orthographic mapping refers to the mental process readers use to store written words for later, instant retrieval. Orthographic mapping explains how students turn unfamiliar words into instantly accessible sight words, with no sounding out or guessing. This is something that weak readers do very poorly, and as a result, they have limited sight vocabularies and limited reading fluency. Now in its third decade of empirical validation, orthographic mapping is the “holy grail” of reading education. Students who are good at remembering the words they read (i.e., orthographic mapping) develop skilled word-level reading, whereas those who do not, become weak or “disabled” readers. Orthographic mapping represents a very large part of reading acquisition and should guide curricular decisions, evaluation practices, and intervention approaches. Indeed, the highly successful research results described above came from studies whose interventions were consistent with our understanding of orthographic mapping.

Many folks reading this volume will simply want the “bottom line” in terms of what needs to be done for assessing and remediating reading. I understand this kind of thinking, given our busy professional lives. However, our educational system has many long-held beliefs about reading that are fully entrenched in our curricula, textbooks, and general thinking. Simply presenting the “bottom line” will not likely promote change.

It is for this reason that I have decided to “pull back the curtain” to reveal not only what we know, but also the science behind how we know it. Nonetheless, this volume contains much practical information related to assessment and intervention, so those looking for the bottom line should find precisely the kind of information they are looking for.

Acknowledgments

Many people assisted me in some way or another in writing this book, and I owe them a debt of gratitude. First, I would like to thank Drs. Alan and Nadeen Kaufman for including this volume in their celebrated Essentials series. It is an honor for me to be a contributor to this excellent collection of resources.

Next, my thanks go to Marquita Flemming, Senior Editor at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., who has been a great source of encouragement and patience during these last 21 months. She made the experience a very positive one. Thanks also to Elisha Benjamin and Melinda Noack for their assistance during the production process.

I would like to thank Dr. Dawn Flanagan for suggesting I submit a proposal to this series and for recommending me to the editors. Her role was pivotal.

Numerous people read parts of this manuscript and offered comments and suggestions. My thanks go to Dr. Larry Lewandowski, Dr. Benjamin Lovett, Dr. Joann Baumgardner, Beth DeWolf, and Cheri Panek. Luqman Michel, a reading tutor in Malaysia, read nearly the entire manuscript and contributed countless improvements. I would like to thank Sue Alongi and Dr. Cara Smith, both school psychologists who provided me with tests to review that I did not otherwise have available.

My wife Andrea provided feedback on portions of the manuscript and helped free up time for me to work on the book. I greatly appreciate her support.

I would like to thank the interlibrary loan staff at SUNY Cortland who provided me with dozens of hard-to-access resources, always in a timely fashion. Thanks also go to Edward Copenhagen, the special collections librarian at the Monroe C. Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education, who was incredibly accommodating during the three days I spent there while preparing this volume (and thanks to the Dacey family for letting me stay with them for those three days). My research assistants Meaghan Stadtlander and Deniz (Ecem) Cabas helped download hundreds of journal articles from our library site and scanned many of my books, so almost all of the resources I needed were always accessible on my computer.

I extend a very special thanks to fellow school psychologist Dr. Shawn O'Brien. She graciously read the entire manuscript and provided extensive feedback on multiple levels. Had she done any more work on this, I would have had to list her as a coauthor!

Chapter OneIntroduction

The Unfair Race

Picture yourself attending a high school track meet. The athletes are lining up for the 1,600-meter race, which requires four laps around the track. There are six lanes on the track, and you notice that in one lane is a set of high hurdles and in another lane is a set of low hurdles. The other four lanes have no hurdles. When the gun sounds, the runners in the two lanes with the hurdles are soon behind the other runners and continue to get farther behind as the race progresses. The runner in the lane with the high hurdles is the farthest behind. As the race goes on, the gap widens. There is almost no likelihood that either of these runners will catch up with the others. The whole event seems surreal and quite unfair—even painful to watch.

This scenario has close parallels to the development of reading skills among our K–12 students. The top two-thirds of students, as represented by the four lanes without hurdles, take off down the track and have nothing hindering them from running. The bottom third has differing degrees of hindrance based upon how high their hurdles are. Just as one-third of the runners had hurdles, the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicates that each year, about 30% to 34% of fourth graders in the United States read below a basic level.

Don't Forget

This volume is not about helping children become more efficient hurdlers. It is about removing the hurdles from the track.

Efforts to help these weaker readers have been geared toward teaching them how to jump more efficiently over their hurdles. This volume is not about helping children become better and more efficient hurdlers. It is about removing the hurdles from the track before the race even starts. It is also about removing hurdles still ahead of the runners once the race has begun.

Don't Forget

The goal of this book is to open up the vast and extensive world of empirical research into reading acquisition and reading disabilities in order to capitalize on the most useful findings for assessing reading difficulties and for designing highly effective interventions.