A key feature of structured literacy (SL) includes, “explicit, systematic, and sequential teaching of literacy at multiple levels — phonemes, letter–sound relationships, syllable patterns, morphemes, vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and text structure. SL is especially well suited to students with dyslexia because it directly addresses their core weaknesses in phonological skills, decoding, and spelling. If implemented in Tier 1 instruction and tiered interventions, SL practices may also prevent or ameliorate a wide range of other reading difficulties.

This study investigated the use of an adapted shared reading protocol with three children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in home settings. In addition, this study was to investigate whether individual components of the intervention package contributed to its overall effectiveness. Finally, the extent to which the participating children generalized their ability to engage in adapted shared reading with the researcher to shared reading with their parents was explored. The results of the investigation indicate that the children with ASD demonstrated improvements in engagement in shared reading and these improvements generalized to shared reading with the children’s parents.

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a framework for collecting and using data to match students to interventions of varying intensity. This study examines the implementation of RtI in Grade 1–3 reading in 13 states during the 2011–12 school year, focusing on 146 schools that were experienced with RtI. Full implementation of the RtI framework in Grade 1–3 reading was reported by 86 percent of the experienced schools. Fifty-five percent of these schools focused reading intervention services on Grade 1 students reading below grade level, while 45 percent of the schools also provided reading intervention services for Grade 1 students reading at or above grade level. Students who scored just below school-determined benchmarks on fall screening tests, and who were assigned to interventions for struggling readers, had lower spring reading scores in Grade 1 than students just above the threshold for intervention. In Grades 2 and 3, there were no statistically significant impacts of interventions for struggling readers on the spring reading scores of students just below the threshold for intervention.

Historically, learners with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have not had access to the general education curriculum. Current legislation mandates that all children, including children with ASD, have access to and make progress in the general education curriculum. This article contains a review of the literature on writing instruction for children with ASD. Investigation yielded 15 studies with 29 participants with ASD ages 4 to 21 years. Based on the studies reviewed, we concluded that students with ASD benefit from explicit writing instruction, but more research is needed to establish an evidence-based set of practices to guide educators in the development of effective writing programs for this population of students. Strategies that are particularly promising and suggestions for future research are given.

This article follows José, a child with autism spectrum disorder, through his communication journey from age 3 to age 11. His journey illustrates many of the characteristics and challenges of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, as they become a part of the literate community in the general education classroom. Collaborative, family-based teaming strategies that supported José's language and literacy learning from kindergarten through fourth grade are described. The article credits early, intensive intervention based on the family's concerns and goals for meaningful outcomes and communicative competence across learning contexts and communicative partners. Speech-language pathologists' roles as advocates for all students to have access to the social and literate community are also highlighted.