Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties (Essentials of Psychological Assessment)

I am a Reading Specialist in an elementary school. Initially, I purchased this book to have in my office as a reference guide in the event I had a student who was not responding to traditional intervention methods. So the book sat in my office for several months until one day I decided to go through it to find some strategy to help me deal with a boy in Grade 3 who was not responding to any of the methods I used to help him decode words. I turned to a chapter towards the end of the book which dealt with reading difficulties. However, the chapter kept referring to previous chapters dealing with a specific topic. So, I flipped back to the previous chapters and started reading. The long and short of this--I picked up the book and began reading it from the first chapter. It took me a while to get through it because it is VERY extensive and covers each chapter supporting it with LOTS of research. By the time I had completed the first chapter, I couldn't put it down. It is by far THE BEST book I have used in my work. In addition to giving support from the research, the author gives concrete examples used in classrooms with lots of suggested activities. The author covers the full spectrum of reading difficulties (word recognition, decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension) and suggests methods and strategies which can be used for each one. I would highly recommend this book to all reading specialists and those who work with struggling students. I have since searched for other books by this author and found them to be just as helpful. Don't hesitate to purchase this book. Well worth the price.

I am due to take the ELAR 4-8 exam soon and wanted to learn more about reading difficulties in the classroom and relevant assessment. This is a densely packed book that has summaries and quizzes at the end of chapters to test your understanding of what you’ve read. There are some tables and diagrams included as visual aids. Also, lots of references to research studies which is helpful if you want to follow up particular topics.I am steadily working my way through the book with highlighters and pencil, taking notes in the hope that I can embed some of this wealth of information! A very useful read for any classroom practitioner.

I teach middle school special ed. It's quite common to have a student or two in my class who needs basic instruction in phonemic awareness. Kilpatrick's ideas are the best I've found for working with students who need much more than comprehension practice.

I am a school psychologist and saw David Kilpatrick speak back in 2016. Since then I have followed him and read all his books, including this one and Equipped for Reading. These two books changed my practice in diagnosing and understanding reading disabilities. Some of the information he presents can be very scientific and overwhelming, but if you stick with it, you won't regret it. You will have a new, much more in- depth understanding on learning disabilities - but perhaps more importantly, you will come away with a new understanding on how you teach a child to read - and the best interventions to use if you have a child who struggles with reading. I cannot tell you how many educators/teachers/school psychologists/speech therapists have had "AH HA" moments after reading this book. It is a must read.

Thank you, Dr. Kilpatrick! This text is the best I've read in many years as related to my professional practice. It's wonderfully applicable to school psychologists, which makes sense given his many years as a practitioner. Although I believe it would be a great text specifically to use for graduate-level training of school psychologists in reading theory and assessment, it certainly would help generally with training of educators and parents as well. (They might simply choose to skim over the information about some of the standardized phonological and achievement tests commonly administered by school psychologists.) The author clearly has taken an extensive amount of time to pore over research that most of us would never have had the time or intense drive to look into. What's great to me is how he conveys these findings in clear language. His "simple view" of reading strips away some of the jargony, confusing terms that other representations of reading process include. I'm always on the lookout for parsimony in my practice, and I think his ideas (and those substantiated by the amply-cited research on reading) will more effectively and simply capture what we need to know than other models. Although sharing the neuroscientific depictions of reading process may make you feel smarter in conversation, Kilpatrick nails what will make you feel competent in serving students.