ABSTRACT
De ning the term struggling reader has been likened to “trying to nail gelatin to a wall” (Alvermann, 2001, p. 679), but de ning disabled readers carries a more authoritative tone because of the various measures and assessments associated with determining disability. However, these measures and assessments that focus on reading ability are based on speci c activities, such as story recall or identifying main ideas, details, and word or passage meaning, which are themselves discrete skills. These discrete skills have been determined over time to be correlative or indicative of reading ability, and measuring certain of them are the basis of determining reading ability and disability (Mueller, 2001). Statistical analyses of reading disabled people have shown that reading disabilities tend to be correlative with race and social class (Blanchett, 2006; Coutinho, Oswald, & Best, 2002) and that aspect begs the question of how much socio-cultural characteristics de ne what reading should be and how well people read.
