Success with Struggling Readers

I. Struggling Readers
1. Searching for Answers to the Why and How of Struggling Readers
2. Introduction to Benchmark's Interactive Learning Model and Person Variables
3. Exploring the Strengths and Challenges of Struggling Readers: Personality, Temperament, Emotion, Motivation, and Volition
4. Exploring the Strengths and Challenges of Struggling Readers: Intelligence, Physical Development, and Health
II. Context and Theories of Learning
5. The Context for Learning: Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Culture, and Instruction
6. The Context for Learning: Sociocultural, Task, and Text Variables
7. Learning Principles about the Interaction of Variables, Explicit Instruction, and Social Activity
8. Learning Principles That Guide Instruction: Developmental, Motivational, and Accountability Issues
9. Learning Principles to Share with Students
III. Classroom Implementation
10. Strategies for Reading Words: Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Decoding, and Fluency
11. Activities That Reinforce Word Detective Practices
12. Comprehension Strategies
13. Explicit Explanations of Comprehension Strategies for Grades 1-8
14. Rationale for Teaching Concepts, Essential Understandings, and Knowledge Structures
Afterword: Five Major Insights from 45 Years of Teaching Struggling Readers

Irene West Gaskins, EdD, is founder and director of Benchmark School in suburban Philadelphia. She has been honored as a Distinguished Educator by The Reading Teacher and received the International Reading Association's William S. Gray Citation of Merit for lifetime achievement. Her special interest is developing strategies for improving word recognition and comprehension.