Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties

Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties David A. Kilpatrick John Wiley & Sons Paperback. 448 pages. 2015.

David Kilpatrick's book, one of Wiley's Essentials of Psychological Assessment series, is much more than a synthesis of test reviews, summaries of intervention research, illustrative case studies, and recommendations for reading and literacy interventions. While such content is pro forma in a guide for school psychologists, reading specialists, and educators, this book offers provocative new insights into the nature of reading development, reading difficulties, and effective instruction that deserve wide discussion and application in the field.

Kilpatrick, himself a school psychologist with extensive experience conducting evaluations in public school and clinic settings, has studied the scientific literature on reading development, reading difficulties, and reading instruction to an unusual degree for a psychologist whose formal training, as he laments, bypassed this literature almost entirely. Kilpatrick opens his book with insightful comments regarding the rift between the worlds of scientific research and educational practice ("The Unfortunate Reality about Reading Research: Nobody Knows about It!"), thoughtfully explaining not only the nature and manifestations of these divisions but also the reasons why they exist. His book, paradoxically, represents one of the most potent linkages between science and educational practice available to us now.

Three significant ideas, all advancements over typical assessment and instruction...