From August 19-23 1996 an international expert meeting on problems and interventions in literacy development took place in Amsterdam. The meeting was organized by Pieter Reitsma (Paedologisch Instituut - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Ludo Verhoeven (University of Nijmegen), and funded by the Dutch National Science Foundation. Various experts in the field of literacy problems from 12 countries attended the meeting while presenting a paper based on current peESpectives and recent research. A selection of the papers being presented is now integrated into a single academic reference, after being edited and updated. The editors wish to thank all contributors to this volume for redrafting their original papers. The present volume aims to integrate recent research in field of literacy problems and interventions into a single academic reference. The volume will capture the state of the art in the rapidly expanding field of literacy problems and interventions. The target group of readers of this volume includes researchers and graduate students in language and literacy development. Moreover, the book is of interest for practitioners working in the field of literacy problems. Pieter Reitsma and Ludo Verhoeven vii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Peter Afflerbach - University of Maryland, 2304C Benjamin Building, College Park MD 20742, USA Jesus Alegria - Universite Libre de Bruxelles, LAPSE CP 191, Avenue F. Roosevelt 50, B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium Elisabeth Arnbak - Department of General & Applied Linguistics, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300 Copenhagen, Denmark Janwillem Bast - Paedologisch Instituut-VU Amsterdam, Postbus 303, 1115 ZG Duivendrecht, The Netherlands.