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Most definitions of learning disabilities (LD) include a qualification that adequate general education instruction was received and the child with LD did not benefit. Rarely is this tenet assessed in either practice or research before a diagnosis is made. In this chapter we review three studies that investigated children’s responsiveness to general education reading instruction as an indicator of the need for more intensive interventions. Adequacy of instruction was quantified by children’s level and rate of progress as measured by curriculum-based measures of oral reading fluency. This model of identification was based on Fuchs and Fuchs (1998) treatment-validity model wherein children who do not respond to interventions provided in the general education classroom are potential candidates for special education services. The results of the studies reviewed indicate that the model is valid in that: (a) children who differ from their peers on level and slope of performance have more severe academic and behavioral problems than children who have IQ-achievement discrepancies or low achievement; (b) children who demonstrate persistent non-responsiveness over three years differ from other at-risk children on reading, reading-related, and behavioral measures; and (c) at-risk children who participated in specially-designed general education interventions had better outcomes than at-risk children who did not participate.