Summary and Conclusions

We want to end this book talking about you, as an education leader. But first, let's briefly revisit what we've presented in the previous 11 chapters. First, we talked about the problem that led us to write this book in the first place—simply stated, the following:

• Nationwide, children of poverty—low SES children—are referred for identification as learning disabled (LD) at a rate that far exceeds the rate for children from higher-income homes.
• There's a lot of statistical evidence that shows that poor classroom performance of low SES children is more likely based on their lack of school-readiness skills than a result of a diagnosed learning disability.
• Standard teaching strategies don't address the problem of low school readiness, with the result that too many ...