Providing instruction to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be challenging for teachers since students can have a range of unique learning needs, particularly in reading comprehension. Given that reading comprehension is a complex process requiring the use of various knowledge and skills simultaneously, many students with ASD often…

Previous research has identified various factors that contribute to readers' comprehension of expository texts, including strategy expertise, language proficiency, prior knowledge, and more recently, readers' beliefs about knowledge. This study addresses the need to understand the relative contributions of these predictors to readers'…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how literature discussion affects middle school struggling readers. The focus was on 16 middle school struggling readers in a rural Title I school in the southeastern United States. Findings indicated that (a) literature discussion increased student enjoyment of reading, and (b) students…

The textbook holds the potential to serve as an instructional resource, to provide directives on how to effectively teach reading comprehension strategies. In this capacity, the textbook becomes a tool in the teacher's toolkit. With this tool in hand, teachers may be better prepared to face their mission--to improve adolescents' literacy. This…

As students move through the grades, the demands of comprehending increasingly complex text increase, and some students begin to struggle. What are the differences between skilled and struggling readers? How can educators teach students to become more proficient readers? This Teaching Tip describes research into middle-level students' reading…

This study examines the benefits of reading strategy training on adolescent readers' comprehension of science text. Training was provided via an automated reading strategy trainer called the Interactive Strategy Trainer for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART), which is an interactive reading strategy trainer that utilizes animated agents to…

We study the comprehension of a multimedia technical document about gear functioning by young pupils. The research is focused on the effect of three factors on the construction of a mental model: illustration format (animated versus static) signaling cues (presence versus absence) learner-control of information delivery (three rhythms of…