Academic success for African American boys' in Special Education is frequently elusive as the United States continues to endure the legacy of academic discrimination (Blanchett, 2010; Skiba et al., 2008). Consequently, educational policies have not fully protected the equal rights or adequately responded to the learning needs of students' academic shortcomings or taken advantage of their strengths (Parkinson & Rowan, 2008; Tatum, 2005). This persistent reading gap has not closed in generations, which is deeply harmful to our American democracy (Wolf, 2019). With every passing year that goes by without alleviating problems affecting the reading gap, the damage is costly, and no failure is more expensive than the failure to educate African American males in the PK-12 pipeline (Robinson & Thompson 2019). The danger to our students becomes more critical each year, and these are problems that are deeply rooted in America. And, while teachers cannot change the past, we can, and must, change the special education system that shapes the future of students. Thus, a reader's identity becomes shaped by the intersection of factors that are both inherent and neurologically based, and factors that arise as a result of one's home and academic environment (Hoyles & Hoyles, 2010; Robinson, Ford, Ellis, & Hartlep, 2016; Wolf, 2007). Reading instruction must be culturally relevant which can strengthen the reader's identity and capacity for critical thinking (Arya & Feathers, 2012; Flowers, 2007; Robinson, 2017). Critical literacy is grounded in the sociocultural perspective and way of thinking about curriculum, literacies, and honoring students' lived experiences, especially within the contexts of Special Education (Brooks, 2006; Gay, 2002; Norman, 2011). This edited book will fill a needed gap in scholarly research, as manuscripts adopts a critical analysis that brings together the latest theoretical, conceptual, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research studies. Chapters will have clear and explicit implications for educational practice and make a significant contribution to the field of special education and reading instruction.

This edited book reflects a much needed area of scholarship as the voices of African American (AA) or Black students defined by various labels such as learning disability, blindness/visual impairment, cognitive development, speech or language impairment, and hearing impairment are rare within the scholarly literature. Students tagged with those identifiers within the Pk-20 academic system have not only been ignored, and discounted, but have also had their learning framed from a deficit perspective rather than a strength-based perspective. Moreover, it was uncommon to hear first person narratives about how AA students have understood their positions within the general education and special education systems. Therefore, with a pervasive lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the experiences of AA with disabilities, this book describes personal experiences, and challenges the idea that AA students with disabilities are substandard. While this book will emphasize successful narratives, it will also provide counter-narratives to demystify the myth that those with disabilities cannot succeed or obtain terminal degrees. Overall, this edited book is a much needed contribution to the scholarly literature and may help teachers across a wide array of academic disciplines in meeting the academic and social needs of AA students with disabilities.

This timely book tackles underlying issues that see disproportionate numbers of African American males with dyslexia undiagnosed, untreated, and falling behind their peers in terms of literacy achievement. Considering factors including dialectic linguistic difference, limited phonological awareness, and the intersectionality of gender, language, and race, the studies included in this volume illustrate how classroom practices at preschool and elementary levels are failing to support students at risk of reading and writing difficulties. Promoting Academic Readiness for African American Males with Dyslexia shows that it is possible to provide every girl and boy, and particularly African American boys with effective support and appropriate interventions enabling them to read at a level that is conducive to ongoing academic performance and success. This, argue the authors of this volume, is vital to the social, emotional, moral, and intellectual development of our society. This edited volume was originally published as a special issue of Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties. It will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the field of African-American Education, Educational Equity, Race studies, Multiple learning difficulties and Literacy development.

This timely book tackles underlying issues that see disproportionate numbers of African American males with dyslexia undiagnosed, untreated, and falling behind their peers in terms of literacy achievement. Considering factors including dialectic linguistic difference, limited phonological awareness, and the intersectionality of gender, language, and race, the studies included in this volume illustrate how classroom practices at preschool and elementary levels are failing to support students at risk of reading and writing difficulties. Promoting Academic Readiness for African American Males with Dyslexia shows that it is possible to provide every girl and boy, and particularly African American boys with effective support and appropriate interventions enabling them to read at a level that is conducive to ongoing academic performance and success. This, argue the authors of this volume, is vital to the social, emotional, moral, and intellectual development of our society. This edited volume was originally published as a special issue of Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties. It will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the field of African-American Education, Educational Equity, Race studies, Multiple learning difficulties and Literacy development.

In today's educational space, no student who struggles with reading should be denied a fair and equal education just because teachers are not trained to understand the implications of dyslexia. Failing to learn to read is not failing to learn. It merely means that the orthodox methods of whole-language reading instruction have not favored those students who need specific multisensory instruction. In Narratives from Mothers of Children with Dyslexia: Our Stories for Educators, mothers share personal stories of pain in navigating educational spaces for the success of their sons and daughters who are dyslexic. Despite resistance from within the PreK-12 academy, these mothers have become warriors for education. The narratives in this text are global ones, from Singapore, India, Kenya, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States, and are in local "dialect." The mothers use a variety of terms to describe their experiences, but the differences in language only prove that the language of experience is universal; we can understand everyone, even if they use different terms or names. We understand what they have learned through the challenges and struggles of serving as the backbone of their child's education. We can easily translate that experience into the global, universal expression of a parent's love for their child.

Academic success for African American boys' in Special Education is frequently elusive as the United States continues to endure the legacy of academic discrimination (Blanchett, 2010; Skiba et al., 2008). Consequently, educational policies have not fully protected the equal rights or adequately responded to the learning needs of students' academic shortcomings or taken advantage of their strengths (Parkinson & Rowan, 2008; Tatum, 2005). This persistent reading gap has not closed in generations, which is deeply harmful to our American democracy (Wolf, 2019). With every passing year that goes by without alleviating problems affecting the reading gap, the damage is costly, and no failure is more expensive than the failure to educate African American males in the PK-12 pipeline (Robinson & Thompson 2019). The danger to our students becomes more critical each year, and these are problems that are deeply rooted in America. And, while teachers cannot change the past, we can, and must, change the special education system that shapes the future of students. Thus, a reader's identity becomes shaped by the intersection of factors that are both inherent and neurologically based, and factors that arise as a result of one's home and academic environment (Hoyles & Hoyles, 2010; Robinson, Ford, Ellis, & Hartlep, 2016; Wolf, 2007). Reading instruction must be culturally relevant which can strengthen the reader's identity and capacity for critical thinking (Arya & Feathers, 2012; Flowers, 2007; Robinson, 2017). Critical literacy is grounded in the sociocultural perspective and way of thinking about curriculum, literacies, and honoring students' lived experiences, especially within the contexts of Special Education (Brooks, 2006; Gay, 2002; Norman, 2011). This edited book will fill a needed gap in scholarly research, as manuscripts adopts a critical analysis that brings together the latest theoretical, conceptual, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research studies. Chapters will have clear and explicit implications for educational practice and make a significant contribution to the field of special education and reading instruction.

This edited book reflects a much needed area of scholarship as the voices of African American (AA) or Black students defined by various labels such as learning disability, blindness/visual impairment, cognitive development, speech or language impairment, and hearing impairment are rare within the scholarly literature. Students tagged with those identifiers within the Pk-20 academic system have not only been ignored, and discounted, but have also had their learning framed from a deficit perspective rather than a strength-based perspective. Moreover, it was uncommon to hear first person narratives about how AA students have understood their positions within the general education and special education systems. Therefore, with a pervasive lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the experiences of AA with disabilities, this book describes personal experiences, and challenges the idea that AA students with disabilities are substandard. While this book will emphasize successful narratives, it will also provide counter-narratives to demystify the myth that those with disabilities cannot succeed or obtain terminal degrees. Overall, this edited book is a much needed contribution to the scholarly literature and may help teachers across a wide array of academic disciplines in meeting the academic and social needs of AA students with disabilities.