ABSTRACT
Persistent reading disabilities is an explanatory term because of its reference to an underlying psychological trait. Confusion on this matter abounds, such as in a de nition of reading disabilities as “reading achievement that is signi cantly below expectancy for both individual reading potential and for chronological age or grade level” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 210). Here the ability is de ned in terms of the performance, whereas the performance might be due to other factors. Among those identi ed as having persistent reading disabilities, there are those who have profound learning dif culties and have little prospect of learning to read. Included among this group are those with severe language impairment, deviant language acquisition patterns including serious neurobiological and perceptual abnormalities (Paul, 2007), congenital word blindness (Hinshelwood, 1917), and irremediable severe cerebral defects (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007). Students with profound learning dif culties are not the focus of this chapter. Rather, our focus is on students deemed to have persistent reading dif culties as a consequence of factors such as limited exposure to reading, instructional materials that are too dif cult, and learned dependence.
