The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal

All parents want their children to read well and to succeed — and experts agree that improving literacy begins at birth. Reading aloud to your child, sharing simple games and wordplay, and developing letter knowledge start your child off on the right foot for school and life. Now the esteemed Lee Pesky Learning Center has created this easy, accessible reference for parents to help foster better literacy skills in children.

Voices from Fatherhood is unique in focusing on fathers’ concerns in parenting their ADHD sons. It offers fathers support and encouragement and specific management techniques. In summary, this is a book that everyone — fathers, mothers, educators, and mental health professionals — will find useful in helping to understand the dynamics of modern day father-son relationships.

Approaching literacy development as a complex process that unfolds over time, this book gives educators the guidance they need to help students continuously advance and deepen their reading skills — not just in the early grades, but into the upper grades as well. All the suggested ideas and approaches are evidence-based or identified as best practices in reading, so educators can use them with confidence in their classrooms. Equally effective as a text for preservice educators, a manual for in-service teachers, and a resource for administrators wrestling with different approaches to reading instruction, this in-depth, accessible book will lead to sharper skills and better outcomes for a wide range of struggling learners.

This book uses the Building Blocks model. The Building Blocks model is practical, supported by research, and easy to implement. It identifies ten areas important to school success (the building blocks), divided into three levels:

1. the foundational level includes attention and impulse control, emotion and behavior, self-esteem, and learning environment blocks
2. the symbolic processing and memory level contains the visual, auditory, and motor skills blocks
3. the conceptual level comprises using strategies and thinking with language and images

When Marvin’s name is not on the class roster on the first day of school, he feels like he’s one too many – in fact he doesn’t even have a desk. Plus, Marvin can’t seem to catch on to reading as quickly as the other kids. Perhaps a little help from his teacher and his parents will give Marvin the boost he needs.

This book provides an understanding not only of dyslexia but also of the broader population of weaker readers and presents information on how to help them. Understanding Dyslexia and the Reading Process presents dyslexia against a background of normal reading development, and in the context of child development, taking into account multiple factors that affect how well a child overcomes or compensates for dyslexia. Case examples are presented throughout to illustrate specific skill weaknesses. Dyslexia research provides considerable knowledge about how to help all children who do not learn to read on schedule. The final two chapters of the book deal with the history and nature of reading instruction, and how we can improve the teaching of reading in our schools. For anyone interested in reading development.