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People with extensive needs for support represent the last group of people routinely denied opportunities for literacy instruction. One of the major reasons for this lack of opportunity can be related to limited definitions of what constitutes literacy as a whole and reading and writing in particular. This article will explore the way in which definitions of literacy impact literacy opportunities for individuals with extensive needs for supports. We propose a set of core definitional principles and make explicit the assumptions underlying their inclusion. Our hope is that this will lead to a dialogue about how we define literacy and the implications this holds for the lives of people with extensive needs for support. Our work is based on the assumption that all individuals with extensive needs for support are fully capable of benefiting from literacy instruction and further that our field as a whole could benefit from a more optimistic and inclusive approach to literacy instruction. We conclude that the way in which we define literacy is powerful and essential to opening the final frontier of literacy opportunities to include people with extensive needs for support.

This article presents results from an observational study comparing instructional context, teacher behavior, and engaged behavior for 15 students with severe disabilities in general education classrooms and 15 students with severe disabilities in self-contained classrooms. The observational data system was the Code for Instruction and Student Academic Response–Mainstream Version. The major significant differences were that students in general education classrooms received a greater proportion of their instruction through academic rather than functional activities and received more one-to-one instruction and teacher attention than did students in self-contained classrooms. No significant differences were found between the settings for student response. The most interesting finding may be that so few differences were found between general education and self-contained classrooms.

This paper describes the Dual License Teacher Preparation Program at the University of New Mexico and the national and state context within which it was developed and continues to evolve. Graduates of the Dual License Program are eligible for licensure in general education (K-8) and special education (K-12). Our belief in democratic ideals in education, together with the vision of preparing all teachers to be ready to teach all students, has required us to reconceptualize the ways in which we implement university based coursework and field experiences. This paper gives specific examples of the ways in which faculty in the Dual License Program model collaboration between general and special education to prepare apprentice teachers to collaborate in the schools in order to provide inclusive educational practices for all students. This paper specifically highlights the inclusion ofbest practices for students with severe disabilities as an integral part of curriculum development right from the start. Also, challenges arising from the implementation of this innovative program are discussed.

Although there is an increased focus on reading instruction in schools, little is known about how teachers of students with extensive support needs are prepared to provide literacy instruction for this group of students. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study of how literary instruction is addressed within teacher education programs at institutions of higher education that prepare preservice and inservice teachers to work with students with extensive support needs. We conducted telephone interviews with nine teacher educators in university programs across the country that prepare special educators, asking about their experiences and perceptions of what works well and what presents difficulty in preparing teachers to effectively teach literacy skills to students with significant disability, what additional research and practice knowledge is needed in this area, and how they view literacy instruction for students with extensive support needs fitting into the current national debate on reading instruction methodology. Content analysis of respondents' interviews yielded three broad themes that we describe and discuss: Challenges, changes, and future directions for the field. We explore the implications of the study's findings for teacher preparation programs and directions for future research.

Teacher preparation has emerged as an acutely politicized and publicized issue in U.S. education policy and practice, and there have been fierce debates about the methods and reasoning behind it. Because of the importance of teachers and teacher education, policy should be driven by the best evidence based on high-quality research. In Holding Teacher Preparation Accountable: A Review of Claims and Evidence, four major national initiatives intended to improve teacher quality by "holding teacher education accountable" for arrangements and outcomes are explored. This policy brief scrutinizes each initiative in light of the research evidence.

What key issues and challenges affect the lives of people with severe disabilities todayâ€"and what should tomorrow's professionals do to address them? Aligned with the core values and agenda of TASH, this visionary text prepares professionals to strengthen supports and services for people with disabilities across the lifespan. Readers will fully examine more than a dozen critical topics in the lives of people with severe disabilities; explore necessary reforms to policy and practice; and set clear goals and priorities for improving early intervention, education, health care, behavior suppor