Book excerpt: Teachers who attempt to enhance the reading and writing skills of their students face one of the most difficult tasks in education. Not only are reading and writing two of the most difficult processes to teach and reinforce but they are two of the most important. After working with literally thousands of teachers to improve their effectiveness at enhancing these key literacy skills and after surveying the research, we have come to some conclusions about how reading and writing can be taught and reinforced. We present what we have learned in this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).