A mixed-design study investigated how teachers and second/third- and fourth-grade bilingual students in three high-poverty schools responded to dialogic cognitive strategy instruction or dialogic responsive engagement (RE) instruction compared with a treated control (vocabulary). The second graders were taught in Spanish, and the fourth graders…

Decades of research offer important understandings about the nature of comprehension and its development. Drawing on both classic and contemporary research, in this article, we identify some key understandings about reading comprehension processes and instruction, including these: Comprehension instruction should begin early, teaching word-reading…

In this volume, two notable scholars trace the monumental shifts in theory, research, and practice related to reading education and literacy, with particular attention to what they consider the central goal of literacy-making meaning. Each section describes a specific epoch, including a brief snapshot of how the reader of that period is envisioned…

Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. The SVR, which describes comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension, also served as the primary theoretical model underlying the Reading for Understanding (RfU)…

We present lessons learned from an ongoing attempt to conceptualize, develop, and refine a way for teachers to gather formative assessment evidence about classroom argumentation as it happens. The system--named DiALoG (Diagnosing Argumentation Levels of Groups)--includes a digital scoring tool that allows teachers to assess oral classroom…

This report reflects a panel presentation and discussion at the 2020 Literacy Research Conference focused on the science of reading (SoR). Each panelist presents a summary of the presentation and incorporates the comments of the Literacy Research Association (LRA) members attending the session virtually and posting in the chat room. Each…

This special issue of "JREE" ["Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness"] features studies from three of the teams (Barnes, Stuebing, Fletcher, Barth, & Francis; Language and Reading Research Consortium, Arthur, & Davis; LaRusso et al.) supported by the Institute of Education Sciences--Reading for Understanding…

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts have prompted enormous attention to issues of text complexity. The purpose of this article is to put text complexity in perspective by moving from a primary focus on the text itself to a focus on the comprehension of complex text. We argue that a focus on comprehension is at the heart of…

Schools in the United States are making curricular changes from kindergarten through college to meet the Common Core State Standards' demands for higher expectations in reading and writing. As they make these important changes, however, they need not overturn all that they learned about effective reading pedagogy during No Child Left Behind…

The authors of this article, all of whom have been a part of this effort to assess argumentation in literacy-rich science curriculum, have struggled with our attempts to build 3 argument-related assessments--understanding, critiquing, and constructing arguments about scientific phenomena in both oral and written modes. Loosely affiliated with the…

In this article, we share with readers our hopes, fears, and predictions for reading assessment in American schools at a critical policy juncture--the production of new assessments to measure achievement of the Common Core State Standards. It isn't just Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced…

This study examines, within the domain of science, the characteristics of words that predict word knowledge and word learning. The authors identified a set of word characteristics--length, part of speech, polysemy, frequency, morphological frequency, domain specificity, and concreteness--that, based on earlier research, were prime candidates to…

We investigated the relationship between Chichewa (L1) and English (L2) literacies in Malawi. Through our use of hierarchical linear modeling, we found that cross-language literacy transfer between Chichewa and English did occur, but that the pattern and the strength of the relationships varied depending on the literacy domain (i.e., reading or…

In this article, we report on the results of a project devoted to improving literacy in South Africa's rural schools; specifically we report the results of an intervention study that centered on improving mother-tongue literacy instruction offered to learners in Grades 1 and 2 in South African schools. Our findings demonstrate that there are…

This study investigates the efficacy of an integrated science and literacy approach at the upper-elementary level. Teachers in 94 fourth grade classrooms in one Southern state participated. Half of the teachers taught the treatment unit, an integrated science-literacy unit on light and energy designed using a curriculum model that engages students…