Louise Spear-Swerling, PhD, is Professor Emerita in the Department of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University. Her research interests focus on children's reading development and literacy difficulties, as well as teacher knowledge for reading instruction; she has presented and published widely on these topics. Dr. Spear-Swerling is the author of two previous books on reading difficulties and is an editorial board member for several journals, including Annals of Dyslexia, Teaching Exceptional Children, and Reading Psychology. A former special educator at the elementary level, Dr. Spear-Swerling prepared both general and special education teacher candidates to teach reading using structured literacy approaches for many years. Currently she consults often for K-12 schools, primarily on cases involving students with severe or persistent literacy difficulties and ways to improve their achievement.