The role of knowledge and reading comprehension has seen a recent explosion of attention from researchers, journalists, and policy advocates. Much of this discourse describes knowledge in neutral terms such as knowledge of "the world". That knowledge of the world, however, is woven into the fabric of the gendered world we live in and its…

This study contributes to the science of teaching reading by illustrating how a ubiquitous classroom practice -- read alouds -- can be enhanced by fostering teacher language practices that support students' ability to read for understanding. This experimental study examines whether and to what extent providing "structured teacher read…

While online information is abundant and easily accessible, its quality varies widely. Fact-checkers evaluate online information by reading laterally, i.e., opening a new browser tab to research sources and verify claims. This dissertation consisted of three studies that used course outcomes assessment data to examine the impact of a lateral…

Purpose: The single-site case study described herein is part of a two-year professional development (PD) initiative aimed at helping teachers from an urban elementary (K-8) school learn how to implement explicit, transactional comprehension strategy instruction across grades using culturally relevant books. This paper aims to describe the urban…

Reading comprehension instruction in the United States has historically been weak and provided limited support for diverse learners. Though the majority of teachers in the United States use core reading programs to design and teach reading comprehension lessons, virtually nothing is known about how teachers interact with core programs to develop…

Thirty years ago in this journal, Aylett Royall Cox reported on the development of "Alphabetic Phonics," a revision of the existing Orton Gillingham treatment for children with dyslexia. This paper continues that discussion and reports on the evolution of that curriculum as it is represented in a comprehensive dyslexia treatment program…

Current trends in developmental writing have focused on corequisite support courses that developmental writers take in conjunction with college-level courses. Much recent scholarship has focused on the design of the corequisite course, but a corequisite model also raises the stakes of the curricular design of the college-level course, since it now…

This research investigated the cognitive demands of reading curricula from 1910 to 2000. We considered both the nature of the text used and the comprehension tasks asked of students in determining the cognitive demands of the curricula. Contrary to the common assumption of a trend of simplification of the texts and comprehension tasks in third-…

In May 2016, an invitational symposium on the Reading for Understanding (RfU) initiative was held in Alexandria, Virginia. Co-hosted by ETS and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the symposium brought together some 160 state and local education leaders to examine the results of the Reading for Understanding Initiative. The goal of…

Reading comprehension refers to elementary children's levels of understandings of written text. Building on Bloom's Taxonomy (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956), children can understand text at various levels including the literal, inferential, application, and evaluation. When teachers build on the levels of reading…

This report grew out of an effort by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE's) Center on Continual Instructional Improvement (CCII) to extend its evaluation of the usefulness of the concept of "Learning Progressions" for the fields of mathematics and science education, to include literacy teaching and learning. Herein,…

Conducted every five years, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) assesses international trends in the reading comprehension of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition point in children's development as readers. PIRLS was designed to complement the International Association for the Evaluation of…

The ultimate goal of children's reading development is the full and fluid understanding of texts. Morphological structure awareness, or children's awareness of the minimal units of meaning in language, has been identified as a key skill influencing reading comprehension. Here, we evaluate the roles of morphological structure awareness and two…

Let's Know! is a language-focused curriculum supplement developed through the Institute of Education Sciences' Reading for Understanding initiative aimed at supporting prekindergarten through grade 3 students' listening and reading comprehension. The current study reports results concerning the impacts of 2 instantiations of Let's Know! on…

Nested within a 5-year examination of Teach for America (TFA) corps members' experiences with learning to teach, this article focuses on the salient theme of "Reform Models" found in data collected when a highly publicized testing cheating scandal was breaking in this urban district. Using constructivist grounded theory, researchers…