Teaching Word Recognition: Effective Strategies for Students with Learning Difficulties

Rollanda E. O'Connor, PhD, is Professor and Eady/Hendrick Endowed Chair in Learning Disabilities in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. She taught reading in special and general education classrooms for many years. Dr. O'Connor has conducted numerous reading intervention studies in general and special education settings, examined procedures to predict the students most likely to develop reading disabilities, and followed the reading progress of students who have received early intervention. Her longitudinal studies of intervention and assessment led to the development of Ladders to Literacy, a collection of phonological and print awareness activities and scaffolding suggestions for children at risk for reading problems, and the Handbook of Reading Interventions,which describes evidence-based interventions for struggling readers in grades PreK-12. Her current research includes exploring the effects of early, continuous intervention across the first 4 years of reading development and developing research-based interventions for students with reading difficulties in the intermediate and middle school grades.