Introductory psychology students need supports to read and think in a discipline-specific way when learning psychology theories. We tested the effectiveness of using a task-model steps chart to help students understand, evaluate, and use theories presented in their introductory psychology textbook and lecture videos. We randomly assigned 52…

Professors and students have contradictory views of course reading. Professors believe that reading outside of the classroom is essential in optimizing learning. However, students often find the readings to be time-consuming, not necessary to pass the class, and an option rather than a requirement. We surveyed 449 undergraduate university students…

The elementary grades provide a rich context for literacy and science learning. Reading, writing, and talk support students' conceptual understanding of and engagement with science. The authors provide theoretical and research evidence to support the teaching of five instructional strategies that can facilitate literacy and science learning in…

While educators believe reading is an investment in learning and knowing, what many are not considering is what reading analytically means to civic life in the digital age when many of the old gatekeepers of traditional publishing are disappearing. As new voices have emerged, and there is an explosion of reading material, there is also less…

Content area literacy has an important role in helping students understand content in specific disciplines, such as mathematics. Although the strategies are not unique to each individual content area, they are often adapted for use in a specific discipline. For example, mathematicians use mathematical language to make sense of new ideas and…

Historians often present their interpretation of the past in written accounts. In order to gain deeper knowledge of the discipline of history, students must learn how to read and write historical accounts. In this experimental pretest--posttest study, we investigated the impact of a domain-specific reading instruction followed by domain-specific…

Synthesizing theory from literacy scholars with strategies derived from classroom inquiry projects, "Rethinking Reading in College" argues for more--and more systematic--attention to the role of reading comprehension in college as a necessary step in addressing the inequities in student achievement that otherwise increase over time.…

The interest in formative assessment, which is highly valued in current conceptualisations of teacher assessment literacy, has led to a renewed focus on initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, as well as on the assessment education domain. The conceptual understanding of the theory and practice of formative assessment has been long advocated…

As the standards in different content areas become more in depth, many students especially ESOL students, tend to have difficulty understanding the vocabulary and are unable to read and understand the content, especially in science and social studies. If students are given a literacy push in all areas of school, not just in reading and language…

In this study, the researchers explore how teacher candidates (TCs) across one content area literacies course and one bilingual education course engaged with their past linguistic experiences through two literacy autobiography assignments across the two separate classes. Borrowing from culturally sustaining, multiliteracies, and translanguaging…

Students face challenging texts and concepts across the disciplines in higher education, and many students lack the reading skills and strategies to make sense of them. The aim of the small study described in this article was to explore the benefits, if any, of the difficulty paper, a written formative assessment that asks students to explore…

Building on work that brings literacy instruction and student science learner identity together, this study addresses a gap in research related to student experiences as readers in middle school science classrooms. To understand student perceptions of pedagogical approaches to reading in science, we asked 45 middle school students to reflect on…

Analytical reading and writing are embedded in a disciplinary approach to history instruction and present opportunities to extend students' literacy practices. U.S. educators and researchers have come to rely on the Document-Based Question (DBQ) to assess and develop students' historical knowledge and argument writing. However, this task has been…

Though practitioners in Basic Writing studies often refer to "the politics of remediation," there are few pedagogical models that address how to teach this facet of professional life to graduate students and emerging professionals. Most often, this knowledge is transmitted through storytelling, namely narrative-based accounts of Basic…

The transition from high school to college is challenging for many students, especially first-generation college students. College courses require disciplinary specific reading, writing, and thinking skills not often taught in high school, such as reading and analyzing complex texts and constructing original arguments in discipline-specific…