Romalda Bishop Spalding received her M.A. in education from Columbia University. Her search for a reading method that empowered children to become more fluent, thoughtful readers and writers led her in 1938 to the distinguished neurologist Dr. Samuel T. Orton, who specialized in teaching dyslexic and other disabled children. Drawing on what she learned from Dr. Orton and her own experience working with children at Massachusetts General Hospital, Children's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, and teaching in public and private schools, she wrote The Writing Road to Reading, first published in 1957. Mary E. North, Ph.D., is Director, Research and Curriculum at Spalding Education International. She earned a Reading Specialist endorsement from the Arizona Department of Education, and she has served as Vice-chairman, National Advisory Council on Adult Education, as Director of Curriculum and Instruction Research and Testing for the Peoria Unified School District (Peoria, Arizona), and as a member of the Arizona Governor's and Superintendent's Joint Task Force on Adult Illiteracy. She lives in Glendale, Arizona.