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Reading disabilities is a common cause of poor performance in schools. In 1940´s, the government of Kenya started programmes for children with special needs. However, the main focus was for those children with mental retardation, hearing impairment, visual impairment and physical disabilities. Recently, there has been a realization that very many children are failing in school subjects and yet they do not have physical or sensory impairments. The main reason for this study was to find out why children continued to fail, yet they are taught using conventional methods. Poor methods of teaching reading and lack of proper identification procedures by teachers and assessors are among the causes of reading difficulties in Kenya, hence poor performance of school subjects at primary level. This book therefore, will be useful to teachers, curriculum developers, policy makers and parents.

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Mary Runo (Ph.D) is a lecturer in the areas of Learning Disabilities and Mental Retardation.She has taught in several institutions of higher learning including universities in Kenya,Africa.She is currently a lecturer at Kenyatta University,in the Department of Special Needs.She is an assessor of children with special needs in and out of school.

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