All readers need successful learning experiences. Recent research suggests that poor readers benefit from using the same whole language reading and writing strategies as more successful readers. In her introduction to the April 1988 themed issue of Vie Reading Teacher on what works with poor readers.
Irene West Gaskins stated: The research I was doing supported the current view that reading is a process in which an active and strategic reader gains meaning through an interaction between background knowledge and information in a text. Since I have adopted this definition, the way I teach has changed and students in the classrooms in which I teach seem to be benefitting — especially the hard-to-teach students. I no longer believe that I am successful as a teacher when most of my students are learning- Unless I have reached the hard-to-teach. I may not have taught at all. The challenge is for classroom teachers to accept responsibility for providing successful learning experiences for all children in their classrooms, including the poor readers (p. 749)
