Incorporating cognitive, neuropsychological, and sociocultural perspectives, this authoritative text explains the psychological processes involved in reading and describes applications for educational practice. The book follows a clear developmental sequence, from the impact of the early family environment through the acquisition of emergent literacy skills and the increasingly complex abilities required for word recognition, reading fluency, vocabulary growth, and text comprehension. Linguistic and cultural factors in individual reading differences are examined, as are psychological dimensions of reading motivation and the personal and societal benefits of reading. Pedagogical Features *End-of-chapter discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. *Explicit linkages among theory, research, standards (including the Common Core State Standards), and instruction. *Engaging case studies at the beginning of each chapter. *Technology Toolbox explores the pros and cons of computer-assisted learning.

The use of printed words to capture language is one of the most remarkable inventions of humankind, and learning to read them is one of the most remarkable achievements of individuals. In recent decades, how we learn to read and understand printed text has been studied intensely in genetics, education, psychology, and cognitive science, and both the volume of research papers and breadth of the topics they examine have increased exponentially. Theories of Reading Development collects within a single volume state-of-the-art descriptions of important theories of reading development and disabilities. The included chapters focus on multiple aspects of reading development and are written by leading experts in the field. Each chapter is an independent theoretical review of the topic to which the authors have made a significant contribution and can be enjoyed on its own, or in relation to others in the book. The volume is written for professionals, graduate students, and researchers in education, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. It can be used either as a core or as a supplementary text in senior undergraduate and graduate education and psychology courses focusing on reading development.

Phonics for Pupils with Special Educational Needs is a complete, structured, multisensory programme for teaching reading and spelling, making it fun and accessible for all. This fantastic seven-part resource offers a refreshingly simple approach to the teaching of phonics, alongside activities to develop auditory and visual perceptual skills. Specifically designed to meet the needs of pupils of any age with special educational needs, the books break down phonics into manageable core elements and provide a huge wealth of resources to support teachers in teaching reading and spelling. Book 1: Building Basics introduces basic sounds and explores their relationship with letters. It focuses on sounds and letters where there is a simple 1:1 correspondence between the two, and explores the sounds in simple words that follow the pattern of vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel-consonant. Sounds are grouped into seven sets, with each set containing more than 50 engaging activities, including: sound story, dynamic blending, reading race, spot the word and spelling challenge. Thorough guidance is provided on how to deliver each activity, as well as a lesson planner template, handy word lists and posters for teachers and teaching assistants to use to support learning. Each book in the series gradually builds on children’s understanding of sounds and letters and provides scaffolded support for children to learn about every sound in the English language. Offering tried and tested material which can be photocopied for each use, this is an invaluable resource to simplify phonics teaching for teachers and teaching assistants and provide fun new ways of learning phonics for all children. This book is accompanied by a companion resource, 'Phonics for Pupils with Complex SEND ', to be used alongside the Phonics for Pupils with Special Educational Needs programme. The activities from Books 1-6 of the programme are adapted to be accessible for non-verbal pupils, including AAC users, and those with physical disabilities.

This brief, thought-provoking collection evaluates historical perspectives in reading to show how current reading practices have developed over time and provides an understanding of the development of significant issues in the field of literacy education. Richard Robinson carefully chose 46 selections with several aims in mind: to include the historical perspective so often neglected in other texts; to explain the evolution of reading practices and ideas across time as well as in terms of pedagogical development; and to illustrate the developing nature of literacy education.

This volume analyzes the work of Virginia Woolf, Lawrence, Joyce, Conrad and Gertrude Stein, seeking to establish how, in each instance, their texts demand to be read. In doing so, it represents a radical challenge to the theories of reading proposed by the Modernist movement.

What might it mean to use books rather than read them? This work examines the relationship between book use and forms of thought and theory in the early modern period. Drawing on legal, medical, religious, scientific and literary texts, and on how-to books on topics ranging from cooking, praying, and memorizing to socializing, surveying, and traveling, Bradin Cormack and Carla Mazzio explore how early books defined the conditions of their own use and in so doing imagined the social and theoretical significance of that use. The volume addresses the material dimensions of the book in terms of the knowledge systems that informed them, looking not only to printed features such as title pages, tables, indexes and illustrations but also to the marginalia and other marks of use that actual readers and users left in and on their books. The authors argue that when books reflect on the uses they anticipate or ask of their readers, they tend to theorize their own forms. Book Use, Book Theory offers a fascinating approach to the history of the book and the history of theory as it emerged from textual practice.

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Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing presents, for the first time, a unified theory of both reading and writing that derives from and is completely consistent with the Dual Coding Theory of cognition, one of the most influential and empirically sound theories of cognition ever developed. This is the first book to take a systematic theoretical approach to all of the central issues of literacy, including decoding, comprehension, and memory in reading; and planning, drafting, and reviewing in writing. Additionally, theoretical accounts are provided for such profound and elusive literacy concepts as meaning, engagement, inspiration, and persona. Dual Coding Theory is unique in theorizing how both verbal and nonverbal cognition are woven throughout all aspects of literacy. An outstanding advancement in understanding literacy, Imagery and Text: A Dual Coding Theory of Reading and Writing: * Explains the major aspects of both reading and writing from an empirically well-established cognitive theory that embraces both language and mental imagery, emphasizing the powerful role of nonlinguistic knowledge and mental imagery in literacy; * Offers a human alternative to current computer-based theories of cognition and literacy derived from artificial intelligence, treating literacy as an essentially human activity that includes imagery and affect; * Provides moment-by-moment accounts of both the reading process and the writing process and comparisons with other theories; and * Presents an extensive review of educational research on the application of dual coding theory.

Recognizing the characteristics of children with learning disabilities and deciding how to help them is a problem faced by schools all over the world. Although some disorders are fairly easily recognizable (e.g., mental retardation) or very specific to single components of performance and quite rare (e.g., developmental dyscalculia), schools must consider much larger populations of children with learning difficulties who cannot always be readily classified. These children present high-level learning difficulties that affect their performance on a variety of school tasks, but the underlying problem is often their difficulty in understanding written text. In many instances, despite good intellectual abilities and a superficial ability to cope with written texts and to use language appropriately, some children do not seem to grasp the most important elements, or cannot find the pieces of information they are looking for. Sometimes these difficulties are not immediately detected by the teacher in the early school years. They may be hidden because the most obvious early indicators of reading progress in the teacher's eyes do not involve comprehension of written texts or because the first texts a child encounters are quite simple and reflect only the difficulty level of the oral messages (sentences, short stories, etc.) with which the child is already familiar. However, as years go by and texts get more complex, comprehension difficulties will become increasingly apparent and increasingly detrimental to effective school learning. In turn, studying, assimilating new information, and many other situations requiring text comprehension -- from problem solving to reasoning with linguistic contents -- could be affected. Problems with decoding, dyslexia, and language disorders have attracted more interest from researchers than have specific comprehension problems and have occupied more room in specialized journals. Normal reading comprehension has also been a favorite with researchers. However, scarce interest has been paid to subjects who have comprehension difficulties. This book is an attempt to remedy this situation. In so doing, this volume answers the following questions: * Does a reading comprehension problem exist in schools? * How important and widespread is the problem? * Is the problem specific? * How can a reading comprehension difficulty be defined and identified? * Does the "syndrome" have a single pattern or can different subtypes be identified? * What are the main characteristics associated with a reading comprehension difficulty? * When can other well-identified problems add to our understanding of reading comprehension difficulties? * Which educational strategies are effective in preventing and treating reading comprehension difficulties? * What supplementary information can we get from an international perspective?

Literacy Beyond Text Comprehension aims to systematically investigate how readers interpret reading tasks within a situation, and how that interpretation influences reading behavior and comprehension. Presenting a new model of REading as problem SOLVing (RESOLV), the authors describe reading comprehension in terms of how a reader adopts goals within a particular situation that then guide what is read, when, and how. By applying the RESOLV model to a range of reading situations, this book provides evidence to suggest that there is no unitary understanding of a task, because individuals bring their own goals and characteristics to the situation; as such, it demonstrates the importance of understanding how a reader (e.g., student, test-taker, employee completing a work task) represents the context and the specific assignment. Written by internationally recognized learning sciences scholars, Literacy Beyond Text Comprehension advances the state of the art in reading research, but also seeks to inform a broader range of audiences, including those interested in the teaching and the assessment of reading.