Based on twenty years of special education research, BJE's Special Education Center in conjunction with BJE's Early Childhood Center and the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services (JBFCS) has initiated a reading disability prevention program aimed at kindergarten and pre-1A youngsters in Jewish day schools. The program will attempt to replicate the recent federally supported work of Drs. Frank Vellutino and Donna Scanlon. Vellutino and Scanlon developed both an assessment tool and intervention program geared to detect and correct potential reading problems in youngsters. In a recent article reviewing their research, Vellutino and Scanlon demonstrated that as many as 50% of students classified in fourth grade as having learning disabilities in the area of reading actually had no real disabilities other than, perhaps, poor instruction.

Currently, Vellutino and Scanlon serve as general program consultants with Dr. Margaret Jo Shepherd of Columbia University as the on-site consultant together with Dr. Lisa Robbins.