Educating the Other America: Top Experts Tackle Poverty, Literacy, and Achievement in Our Schools

Breaking the cycle of poverty by improving education and literacy: that's the ultimate goal of Educating the Other America. This trailblazing book from top experts brings together 30 of the biggest names in education to tackle the toughest challenges faced by the nearly 1 in 5 children who live below the poverty line—and offer fresh, cutting-edge ideas for closing the achievement gap.

Readers will start with an in-depth, research-based understanding of children who fail to read not because of cognitive impairment, but because of the complex effects of poverty. They'll explore the dramatic impact of poverty on children's literacy, school achievement, social success, physical health, and future economic well-being. Then readers will discover the practical benefits of the latest research and innovations in teaching and classroom design:

• creating rich multisensory classrooms that support students' health and learning
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• applying Universal Design to engage all students and accommodate a wide range of learner needs
• using key research findings to shape instruction that helps promote higher achievement for English language learners
• exposing students to multimedia stories that incorporate motion, sound, and music to improve text understanding and vocabulary
• using results of the most recent studies to teach African American students effectively
• making the most of educational software to help improve children's reading outcomes
• turning shared book reading into a great accelerator of vocabulary development, comprehension, and other literacy skills

Education professionals will also learn from the latest statistics and research projects on poverty, literacy, and achievement; explore the successes and limitations of current education reform efforts; and discover what work still needs to be done to create significant and lasting improvements. Representing the most creative new thinking from the best minds in education, this groundbreaking resource illuminates the challenges of poverty and gives professionals the knowledge they need to help students succeed—both in school and for the rest of their lives.

Louisa Cook Moats, Ed.D., has published many book chapters, journal articles, and policy papers on reading instruction. Formerly Project Director at the District of Columbia Public Schools site of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Early Interventions Project, Dr. Moats is now an independent consultant and writer who specializes in the professional development of teachers of reading and writing. Dr. Moats spent the 1996-1997 school year as a visiting scholar at the Sacramento County Office of Education, where she authored and presented leadership training materials on early reading for the California State Board of Education. These materials are now required content in all of the professional development programs conducted under Assembly Bill 1086 in California. Dr. Moats received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Wellesley College, her Master of Arts degree from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and her doctorate of education in reading and human development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She worked as a teacher, neuropsychology technician, and specialist in learning disorders prior to her doctoral training. She was a licensed psychologist in private practice for 15 years in Vermont and a graduate instructor both at Harvard and at St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, where she developed innovative courses for teachers linking the disciplines of linguistics and reading education. Specializing in reading development, reading disorders, spelling, and written language, she has written and lectured widely throughout the United States and abroad. She has taught courses in teacher education at the Greenwood Institute in Putney, Vermont, and at Simmons College in Boston. Her publications include this text's companion workbook, Speech to Print Workbook: Language Exercises for Teachers (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2003); journal articles; book chapters; a classroom basal spelling program; a book titled Spelling: Development, Disability, and Instruction (York Press, 1995); and a book for parents, co-authored with Susan L. Hall, Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference in the Early Years (Contemporary Books, 1999).

Coordinator of Education Outreach, Department of Pediatrics, Center for Academic and Reading Skills, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 7000 Fannin, Suite 2443, Houston, TX 77030. Dr. Sharolyn Pollard-Durodola coordinates two projects in the 5-year program study, “Oracy/Literacy Development in Spanish-Speaking Students,” funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Institute of Education Sciences. For Project III, she conducts interrater reliability checks across sites, coordinates classroom observations of students in kindergarten through second grade, and provides training to classroom observers. For Project V, she assists in the development of a supplemental, intensive proactive Spanish curriculum and intervention program and in the ongoing training and professional development for intervention implementers.

David H. Rose is the Founder and Chief Education Officer of CAST.

Susan B. Neuman, Ed.D., is a professor in educational studies specializing in early literacy development. Previously, she directed the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement. Her research and teaching interests include early childhood policy, curriculum, and early reading instruction from prekindergarten to Grade 3. In her role as Assistant Secretary, she established the Reading First program and the Early Reading First program and was responsible for the implementation of all activities in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act.

Marilyn Jager Adams, Ph.D., is a cognitive and developmental psychologist who has devoted her career to research and applied work in the area of cognition and education. Dr. Adams' scholarly contributions include the book Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print (MIT Press, 1994). Among honors, she has received the American Educational Research Association's Sylvia Scribner Award and The International Dyslexia Association's Samuel Torrey Orton Award.

Dr. Adams chaired the planning committee for the National Academy of Sciences (1998) report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children and has served since 1992 on the planning or steering committees for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading. She also developed a vocabulary assessment for the 2014 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) and was on the development team for the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy.

Dr. Adams has authored a number of empirically validated classroom resources, including Odyssey: A Curriculum for Thinking (Charlesbridge Publishing, 1986), which was originally developed for barrio students in Venezuela; Phonemic Awareness in Young Children: A Classroom Curriculum (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1998) on language and literacy basics for emergent readers and students with special needs; Open Court's 1995 edition of Collection for Young Scholars, a program for reading, writing, and literacy development for elementary school students; and Scholastic's System 44 (2009) and iRead (2013), technology-based programs for building literacy foundations. She has also served on the advisory board for several of the Public Broadcasting System's educational programs including Sesame Street and Between the Lions, for which she was Senior Literacy Advisor.

Dr. Adams spent most of her career with the think tank Bolt Beranek & Newman (BBN Technologies-"Where Wizards Stay up Late") in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 2000 to 2007, she was Chief Scientist at Soliloquy Learning, which she cofounded with the goal of harnessing automatic speech recognition for helping students learn to read and read to learn. She is currently a visiting scholar in the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Department at Brown University. She has two children: John, who is working toward a Ph.D. in social psychology, and Jocie, who is striving to be a musician. Her husband, Milton, is a rocket scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Charles Stark Draper Labs.

Barbara R. Foorman, Ph.D., earned her doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley. She is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Academic and Reading Skills at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School and Principal Investigator of the grant funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Early Interventions for Children with Reading Problems. In addition to many chapters and journal articles on topics related to language and reading development, she is the editor of Reading Acquisition: Cultural Constraints and Cognitive Universals (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986). She is on the editorial board of Journal of Learning Disabilities and has guest edited special issues of Scientific Studies of Reading, Linguistics and Education and Journal of Learning Disabilities. Dr. Foorman has been actively involved in outreach to the schools and to the general public, having chaired Houston Independent School District's Committee on a Balanced Approach to Reading and having testified before the California and Texas legislatures and the Texas Board of Education Long-Range Planning Committee. Dr. Foorman is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, the board of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, the Consortium on Reading Excellence (CORE), and several local reading efforts.

Professor and Associate Dean, College of Education, The California State University, Long Beach, 250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90740. Dr. Goldenberg has taught junior high school in San Antonio, Texas, and first grade in a bilingual elementary school in the Los Angeles area. He is involved in a number of research projects focusing on Latino children’s academic development, home and school influences on Latino children’s academic achievement, and the processes and dynamics of school change. He is a member of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Youth and Children.

Dr. Greenwood is the Director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project and Professor of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas. He is a founding author of progress monitoring measures for infants and toddlers and editor of School-Wide Prevention Models: Lessons Learned in Elementary Schools (Guilford Press, 2008). He is co-principal investigator of the Center for Response to Intervention in Early Childhood (CRTIEC). He has more than 100 publications in peerreviewed journals to his credit. Under his leadership, the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project was awarded the 1996 research award of the Council for Exceptional Children for its contributions to interventions for children with special needs. He was the recipient of the 2009 Higuchi Research Achievement Award in Applied Science at the University of Kansas.