Dr. Marion Blank is the creator of the Reading Kingdom reading program and the director of the A Light on Literacy program at Columbia University in New York. She is a developmental psychologist with a specialization in language and learning who has spent over fort Dr. Blank has developed a unique and comprehensive model for teaching reading that is based on six critical skills. Two are physical skills: the visual sequencing skills for reading the fine motor performance for writing, and four are language skills: phonology, semantics, syntax and discourse. This model allows reading to be taught to a wide variety of children, including those for whom reading attainment is highly problematic, such as non-verbal autistic children. Her latest books The Reading Remedy and Spectacular Bond and her latest program, the Reading Kingdom, are designed to make her system easily available to parents so that they may prevent or overcome the reading failure that afflicts about 40% of the school population across the nation. Education Blank has her bachelor's degree from the City University of New York. She also has a Master's degree in education from that institution. She has a Masters of Public Health degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Career Dr. Blank is currently on the faculty of the Department of Child Psychiatry at Columbia University where she created the Light on Literacy program. She is also a licensed psychologist. She also devotes considerable time and energy to producing books, articles, software programs and tests (including the widely used Preschool Language Assessment Instrument, a test published in both in English and Spanish, that is designed to assess the verbal communication skills of children in the preschool years). From 1973 to 1983, Dr. Blank was a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers Medical School (a component institution of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey). In that capacity, she served as the director of a research unit in reading disabilities. From 1960 to 1973, she was on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York where her work included serving as the Director of the teaching program of the interdisciplinary Training Program. Awards and recognition Throughout her career, Dr. Blank has been the recipient of many awards and commendations. She recently received the Upton Sinclair Award, which honors individuals who