Writing Better: Effective Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Difficulties

With Faking It, Christopher Lee and Rosemary Jackson offered a moving account of Lee’s struggle and ultimate triumph over dyslexia. Now, Lee combines his special insight with Jackson’s expertise as a special education trainer to offer specific help to teachers and parents of other misunderstood learners.

Phonemic awareness—the understanding that words are made up of sounds—is essential to a child’s early reading success. With this book, children gain this awareness through engaging, easy to teach activities.

Some strategies are effective and efficient, and others are not. Those that are both effective and efficient share characteristics that fall into three categories: content features, design features, and usefulness features. The content of the strategy refers to its steps and what they are designed to facilitate during the learning process. The design features refer to how the steps are packaged to facilitate learning and subsequent use of the strategy. The usefulness feature refers to the potential transferability of the strategy to everyday needs in a variety of settings. Ellis and Lenz (1987) identified a number of critical features across these dimensions.

In opposition to traditional models of special education, where teachers decide when a child is deemed “ready to compete” in “mainstream” classes, Mara Sapon-Shevin articulates a vision of full inclusion as a practical and moral goal. Inclusion, she argues, begins not with the assumption that students have to earn their way into the classroom with their behavior or skills, it begins with the right of every child to be in the mainstream of education, perhaps with modifications, adaptations, and support. Full inclusion requires teachers to think about all aspects of their classrooms — pedagogy, curriculum, and classroom climate.

Hallahan and Kauffman continue their tradition of presenting the latest trends and issues in this edition with over 400 new reference citations dated 2000 and after. Theory and research is presented in clear and concise language, and practical teaching suggestions are based on sound research. There are good reasons why Hallahan and Kauffman has been the best-selling introductory book in special education for generations of general education and special education teachers. Depth, lucidity, clarity, and coherence combine to make a text appropriate for readers at all levels: graduate and undergraduate, from introductory to advanced. Hallahan and Kauffman bring readers information they can trust. For anyone interested in education, specifically special education and human exceptionality.

The revised, updated, and expanded edition of the classic in the category.

This book outlines a unique and revolutionary program with a phenomenally high success rate in helping dyslexics learn to read and to overcome other difficulties associated with it. This new edition is expanded to include new teaching techniques and revised throughout with up-to-date information on research, studies, and contacts.