One of my favorite activities on Sunday afternoons is reading The Book Review section of the New York Times. After reading another list of “Best Books in Fiction”, I decided to come up with a list of the books in special education that have influenced me the most. In the future I’ll review, in more depth, why each of these books has resonated with me over the years.

In this entry, I pick up from my previous blog on the federal memo and the use of the term “dyslexia.” Many have heard the term but are unclear about exactly what it means.

Recently the United States Department of Education released a federal guidance memo about the use of the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia and the apparent reluctance in some states to include those terms students’ IEPs. IDEA and related regulations use the term “specific learning disability” as an overall classification, but the memo notes that this classification includes students who present with the characteristics of dyslexia, dyscalculia, or dysgraphia.