What's Special about Special Programs for Children Who Find Learning to Read Difficult?

Teachers of reading comprise a most sinister political group, whose continued presence and strength are more a cause for alarm than celebration. (Postman, 1970, p. 244) In American elementary schools today we can find a variety of special teachers whose primary responsibility lies in fostering the language and literacy development of children considered at risk of school failure. Although reading teachers, many funded from the federal Chapter 1 program, are the most obvious group, it is difficulty with language and literacy learning that most commonly leads to identifying children as learning disabled and language impaired, the two handicapping conditions that account for well over half of children served through special education programs. School psychologists, occupational and physical therapists, and speech and language pathologists are also occupied primarily with evaluating or providing services to children exhibiting language and literacy learning difficulties. In fact, the most direct route to being identified as at risk or handicapped in schools today is to arrive at school with few experiences with books, stories, or print and then exhibit any sort of difficulty with the standard literacy curriculum. Across the past 25 years, American schools have added an array of special teachers and special programs primarily targeted at enhancing literacy learning. Today, many readers of this journal are involved in programs preparing the special teachers that will staff these special programs. Many readers also have a professional history that includes a stint as a special teacher. Yet for all the familiarity so many of us have with special programs for children who find learning to read difficult, our journals have carried relatively few articles about these programs or the impact they have on schools or children who participate in them.