Although the focus in the early grades is often on teaching young children how to read, the ultimate goal of reading is to understand the text--whether to learn new information or simply enjoy a story. Building the groundwork needed for this understanding starts right from the beginning of life--and it's essential from the beginning of school.…

Knowledge activation and knowledge building are essential for reading comprehension. Yet, how can teachers support students in accessing and applying their existing knowledge and experiences during reading? This article provides six evidence-based principles to consider during literacy instruction, which are drawn from a recent systematic…

The surge of support for the science of reading is cause for great cheer. According to the Albert Shanker Institute, 45 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws since 2019 to shift reading instruction based on what research says works. These laws often explicitly call for teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and other skills that…

Comprehending texts in content areas can be challenging for students with learning disabilities (LD) because they may lack the necessary background and vocabulary knowledge needed to construct meaning from text. As more students with LD are educated in the general education classroom, it is necessary for teachers to implement strategies to…

College students are expected to comprehend, analyze, and respond to texts that are often challenging, complex, and specialized. While the importance and value of reading in higher education is hardly disputed, postsecondary literacy frequently revolves around the reinforcement of rudimentary skills. Furthermore, the demands of writing instruction…

More and more students with learning disabilities and other diverse learners are placed for instruction in general education classrooms, which often leaves teachers grappling to design successful peer interactions and literacy activities to meet the needs of all learners in their classrooms. As the shift is made to align literacy instruction to…

Theoretical approaches within the cognitive-interactionist framework (Long, 2015) have identified various aspects of L2 input and characteristics of instruction that predict learners' L2 outcomes. Such strategies of L2 teaching relate to shaping characteristics of communicative activities in which the L2 is embedded and modifying L2 input, L2…

Reading comprehension is key to knowledge acquisition and to reinforcing memory for previous information. While reading, a mental representation is constructed in the reader's mind. The mental model comprises the words in the text, the relations between the words, and inferences linking to concepts in prior knowledge. The automated model of…

Reading comprehension is the goal of reading, and making inferences is vital. Authors usually expect readers to make multiple types of inferences, including anaphoric, background knowledge, predictive, and retrospective. Common core assessments include all of these, yet instructional materials focus mostly on only one type, retrospective. This…

We present a question bank consisting of over 250 multiple-choice and true--false questions covering a broad range of material typically taught in an introductory undergraduate course in numerical analysis or computational science. The questions are ideal for polling students during lectures by means of a student response system that uses…

How can we make sense of what we learned today?" This is a question the author commonly poses to her algebra students in an effort to have them think about the connections between the new concept they are learning and concepts they have previously learned. For students who have a strong, expansive understanding of previously learned topics,…

We introduce the Integrated Framework of Multiple Texts to understand how students use and form connections between multiple texts to accomplish personal or task goals. The Integrated Framework of Multiple Texts conceptualizes students' multiple text use as unfolding over the course of three stages--preparation, execution, and production. In the…

This paper proposes a new theoretical framework for reading instruction in second/foreign language classrooms. The theoretical framework introduced in this paper is called the Schematic Information-Processing (SIP) model of reading comprehension and is a combination of video-based instruction and various reading comprehension theories, models, and…

This article describes a process called "Backing Up" which is a way to preassess student understanding of a topic and gauge student readiness to move forward in the learning process. This process of backing up begins with using responses to a word problem to identify categories of students' understandings in relation to the expectations…

Students may lack the motivation to read for many reasons, including inadequate access to interesting texts, limited encouragement to read for pleasure from adults, instructional practices that do not foster engagement in learning, or a history of reading failure. This article focuses on students with reading disabilities who may have a…