Patrick Daley

Patrick Daley

Director of Intervention Curriculum, Scholastic Publishing

Patrick Daley has spent his teaching and publishing career championing the needs of the older struggling reader."As with many teachers of struggling readers," explains Daley, "the first years were by default, the others were by choice!"

He began his teaching experience as a classroom teacher in Vermont.After completing a graduate degree at Boston University in reading and language, Daley served as reading specialist to students at the intermediate, middle, and high school levels in Massachusetts.Feeling challenged by the lack of motivating materials for his students, he was inspired to create materials that his students could and would read.

Thirteen years ago, Daley joined Scholastic as editor of Action Magazine , a magazine tailored to older students who were not reading on grade level.One of his key roles was to develop student and teacher advisory groups so that he could keep his pulse on the interests of students and needs of teachers.Daley also began writing books for these young adult readers, many of which are published by Scholastic, including Confessions of a Gym Class Dropout, The Skull Man and Other Cool Jobs, and Happy Burger.

Patrick Daley, former Watertown and Newton reading specialist who helped develop the program and is now publishing director of intervention curriculum at Scholastic, said a key goal is getting students to create mental pictures to better understand what they read.He compared the challenge to how adults feel when reading a VCR instruction manual."You can't make sense out of the text," he said.

Recently, Semedo paced in his basement classroom at the Curley School, overseeing 14 sixth-graders in his Read 180 class.Ten students who entered the program in September reading at a kindergarten level, exited mid-year because of their rapid progress, Semedo said.Two now read at fifth- and sixth-grade levels.

"There are pieces of the puzzle missing and the minute you put the pieces together, they fly," he said."They had convinced themselves that they can't read.Part of the process here is convincing themselves that they can read."

Janet Allen & Patrick Daley

Patrick Daley, Scholastic Inc.

Learn how a major urban district, a leading university, and an educational publishing company collaborated to tackle America's number one educational crisis; the struggling older reader.See how this technology based program has helped over 10,000 studentsexperience a 180 degree turnaround in their reading lives.

Using Computer-Based Learning to Address Standards

Patrick Daley, director of Intervention Curriculum for schools in Orange County, Calif., says a program called Read 180 by Scholastic, which relies on short, illustrated texts, audiobooks and computerized reading tests, has helped many students.
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Efforts to get these kids reading books inevitably will fail unless schools and publishers can figure out what they're interested in and gear it to their reading level, says Patrick Daley, director of Intervention Curriculum for schools in Orange County, Calf.

Patrick Daley Patrick Daley has spent his teaching and publishing career championing the needs of the older struggling reader.He has been a classroom teacher and reading specialist to students at the intermediate, middle, and high school levels.Feeling challenged by the lack of motivating materials for his students, he was inspired to create materials that his students could and would read.He became editor of Scholastic's Action Magazine and also wrote many books for young adult readers.Currently, he is Scholastic's Publishing Director of Intervention Curriculum.

Patrick Daley Patrick Daley has spent his teaching and publishing career championing the needs of the older struggling reader.He has been a classroom teacher and reading specialist to students at the intermediate, middle, and high school levels.Feeling challenged by the lack of motivating materials for his students, he was inspired to create materials that his students could and would read.He became editor of Scholastic's Action Magazine and also wrote many books for young adult readers.Currently, he is Scholastic's Publishing Director of Intervention Curriculum.

Meet an expert: Patrick Daley is Scholastic's Publishing Director of Intervention Curriculum.He is a former teacher and reading specialist.
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NEW: Watching movies can help your child become a better reader, says Patrick Daley.