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. Recommendations address the identification of groups of children at risk, effective instruction for the preschool and early grades, effective approaches to dialects and bilingualism, the importance of these findings for the professional development of teachers, and gaps that remain in our understanding of how children learn to read. Implications for parents, teachers, schools, communities, the media, and government at all levels are discussed. The book examines the epidemiology of reading problems and introduces the concepts used by experts in the field. In a clear and readable narrative, word identification, comprehension, and other processes in normal reading development are discussed. Against the background of normal progress, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children examines factors that put children at risk of poor reading. It explores in detail how literacy can be fostered from birth through kindergarten and the primary grades, including evaluation of philosophies, systems, and materials commonly used to teach reading.

M.D. Hilde L. Mosse, head psychiatrist for the N.Y. City Board of Education, writes from her own highly successful experience in teaching 1000 psychologically disturbed & disabled children to read, write & spell English. Her clinical evaluation procedures detail precisely how children should be examined for cognitive subskills. The renowned Dr. William Cruickshank renamed the book for the present publisher to: YOU CAN PREVENT OR CORRECT LEARNING DISORDERS. His endorsement reads, "It is unusual that a doctor of medicine has become an authority on the theoretical & clinical aspects of reading. Dr. Mosse illustrates that authority extensively & intensively. Her original two volumes (now together in paperback) is a compendium of significant information. It indeed could & should serve as a text for educational courses for learning disability teachers as well as provide valuable insights for classroom teachers, parents, aides & others concerned with learning disorders. Here is a book by an author who knows her subject matter, who obviously knows disabled children & who understands appropriate intervention & prevention procedures. This book should be in every university, every library & in the office of every professor of education, every superintendent, principal & disability specialist." Order from Riggs Institute Press, 4185 S.W. 102nd Ave., Beaverton, OR 97005; 503-646-9459.

This volume focuses on cross-linguistic studies of the acquired disorders of reading and what they can tell us about the models of reading and the human brain. The author has compiled a source-book on cross-linguistic studies of reading disorders with data from the alphasyllabaries of India, in addition to showing the implications of these findings on the understanding of reading, its acquisition, and the developmental and acquired reading disorders and their management.