CONTENTS -- PART I: STRUGGLING READERS -- CHAPTER 1. Searching for Answers to the Why and How of Struggling Readers -- History -- The School's Organization, Programs, and Professional Development -- Overview of What Is to Come -- CHAPTER 2. Introduction to Benchmark's Interactive Learning Model and Person Variables -- The Interactive Learning Model (ILM) -- Person Variables: A Historical Perspective -- Characteristics of Students in a School for Struggling Readers -- Present-Day Perspective on Person Variables and Related Instruction -- Summary -- CHAPTER 3. Exploring the Strengths and Challenges of Struggling Readers -- Affect -- Conation -- Summary -- CHAPTER 4. Exploring the Strengths and Challenges of Struggling Readers -- Cognition -- Beliefs -- Physical Development -- Health -- Summary -- PART II: CONTEXT AND THEORIES OF LEARNING -- CHAPTER 5. The Context for Learning: Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Culture, and Instruction -- Teacher Knowledge -- Classroom Culture -- Instruction -- Summary -- CHAPTER 6. The Context for Learning: Sociocultural, Task, and Text Variables -- Sociocultural Group Variables -- The Role of Educators -- Task Variables -- Text Variables -- Summary -- CHAPTER 7. Learning Principles about the Interaction of Variables, Explicit Instruction, and Social Activity -- Learning Principle 1: Learning Is an Interactive Process -- Learning Principle 2: Learning Is More Likely to Occur If Instruction Is Explicit -- Learning Principle 3: Learning Is a Social Act -- Summary -- CHAPTER 8. Learning Principles that Guide Classroom Instruction: Developmental, Motivational, and Accountability Issues -- Learning Principle 4: Learning Is Developmental and Therefore Occurs at Different Rates and in Different Ways -- Learning Principle 5: Learning Is More Likely to Occur If the Learning Situation Meets Students' Motivational Needs.

Learning Principle 6: Learning Is Enhanced by Immediate Feedback and Accountability -- Summary -- CHAPTER 9. Learning Principles to Share with Students -- Becoming Active Learners -- Learning Principles -- Summary -- PART III: CLASSROOM IMPLEMENTATION -- CHAPTER 10. Strategies for Reading Words: Teaching Phonemic Awareness, Decoding and Fluency -- Early Attempts to Teach Phonemic Awareness and Decoding -- What We Learned -- Overview of Word Detectives -- Summary -- CHAPTER 11. Activities That Reinforce Word Detective Practices -- Beginning Word Detectives Activities -- Maintenance -- Summary -- CHAPTER 12. Comprehension Strategies -- Evolution of Comprehension Strategies Instruction -- Development of Strategies across the Curriculum -- Guidelines -- CHAPTER 13. Explicit Explanations of Comprehension Strategies for Grades 1-8 -- Current Strategy Instruction in Benchmark's Lower School -- Current Instruction in Benchmark's Middle School -- Summary -- CHAPTER 14. Rationale for Teaching Concepts, Essential Understandings, and Knowledge Structures -- Why Teach Concepts, Essential Understandings, and Knowledge Structures? -- Student Outcomes and Next Steps -- A Review of the Literature -- Possibilities for Instruction -- Summary -- Afterword: Five Major Insights from 45 Years of Teaching Struggling Readers -- Teachers, Not Materials, Determine Success in Learning to Read -- Children Fall Behind in Reading for Many Different Reasons -- There Is More to Teaching Struggling Readers Than Teaching Reading -- There Are No Quick Fixes -- Becoming a Teacher Is a Lifelong Process -- Summary -- References -- Index.