Teaching Reading to Students Who Are At Risk or Have Disabilities

Bill Bursuck is currently a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Bursuck has been interested in reading instruction ever since teaching reading as an inner-city elementary school teacher in Buffalo New York. In search of better answers to the literacy puzzle, Dr. Bursuck first pursued a Master's degree in special education from the University of Vermont, and then further training as a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since that time he has been involved in preparing special and general education teachers to employ the systematic and explicit instruction needed to effectively teach students who are at-risk or have disabilities to read. Dr. Bursuck has been the principal Investigator for millions of dollars in federal grants, including Project PRIDE, the model-demonstration research grant that provided the basis for the multi-tier practices in this text. He has published numerous research articles and is the co-author of a best-selling textbook on inclusive practices with Dr. Marilyn Friend.

Mary Damer is currently coordinating a multi-tiered reading project in seven Ohio special education charter schools through Multi-Tier LLC, a consulting company she co-founded that works with school districts to increase reading achievement through an intensive, prevention-based, multi-tiered model . . . A former visiting professor at The Ohio State University, Mary also has past experience as a principal and behavior consultant which led to her keen interest in preventing reading problems. Mary observed that a large proportion of students referred for behavior problems could not read near grade level and eventually documented the role that inadequate reading skills played in the book she co-authored, Managing Unmanageable Students: Practical Solutions for Administrators. Her desire to reduce disruptive behavior in schools by increasing the numbers of students who could read at grade level eventually influenced her to take the role of field director for Project Pride, a federally funded early literacy model demonstration program.