Reading comprehension is among the most challenging and complex skills to teach and research. Doing both well is critical to improving the reading comprehension proficiency of 67% of grade 4 students in U.S. public schools who scored below basic on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress. This Chapter presents Knowledge Acquisition…

The science of reading (SOR) refers to the sum of what we know about how people learn to read based on empirical studies across multiple disciplines. The purpose of this review was to identify research evidence to inform the SOR for multilingual learners (MLs). We reviewed 30 systematic reviews related to reading and reading instruction for MLs…

Teachers of elementary English language arts/literacy (ELA) tend to line up behind one of two very different approaches to reading instruction. The first approach prioritizes reading comprehension strategies over content. The second rests on the idea that building background knowledge of the world, including the vocabulary that accompanies such…

As a non formal education students, PKBM (a Non-Formal Community Learning Center) Medaso Kolaka students tend to encounter some difficulties in reading such as low motivation, infrequent tutors (non-formal education teachers) coming, inappropriate teaching materials, etc. This research aimed to investigate the effects of picture story books on the…

One of the most essential academic skills to be attained in school is reading comprehension; consequently, the comprehension instruction provided by teachers is of extreme importance. This study examined instructional strategies of eleven third grade reading teachers employed by the same district who attributed to 75% of students scoring in the…

This study examined whether decoding and linguistic comprehension abilities, broadly defined by the Simple View of Reading, in grade 1 each uniquely predicted the grade 6 writing performance of English-speaking children (n = 76) who were educated bilingually in both English their first language and French, a second language. Prediction was made…

"Reading Mastery" is designed to provide explicit reading instruction to students in grades pre-K-5. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill, "Reading Mastery" is available in two versions: (1) "Reading Mastery Classic" (for grades pre-K-2) aims to help beginning readers identify letter sounds,…

The Read to be Ready campaign emerged from the startling reality of Tennessee's reading achievement data. Only one-third of Tennessee fourth graders scored proficient in the last administration of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in 2015. Equally concerning, students who fell behind in the early years almost never caught up in…

This webinar provided an overview of the research behind literacy for second language learners, the different variables that influence a second language learners' reading abilities, and strategies to improve instruction for these students. Drawing from her research and experience, Dr. Esther Geva discussed the different skills and variables that…

As teachers and leaders move forward in implementing the Common Core State Standards within classrooms across 46 states, it is essential to consider the question of what knowledge is included in the English Language Arts Standards, and what knowledge is not present. The authors of the Common Core delineate an increasingly complex body of knowledge…

In the Simple View of Reading proposed by Hoover and Gough (1990), reading comprehension is conceived as the product of word decoding and listening comprehension. It is claimed that listening comprehension or the linguistic processes involved in the comprehension of oral language strongly constrain the process of reading comprehension. In several…

Teaching English language learners has long presented challenges for teachers tasked with bringing these students to a level of language comprehension comparable to that of native speakers. These challenges and issues can lead to difficulty comprehending core academic topics for those learning the English language. "Optimizing Elementary…

As shown by MetLife's 2010 "Survey of the American Teacher," America's educators strongly believe that all students should graduate from high school ready for college and a career (85 percent). Additionally, according to MetLife's 2009 survey, 86 percent of teachers believe that setting high expectations for students will improve student…

The use of teaching practices that involve intertextual relationship discovery in today's elementary classrooms is increasingly essential to the success of young learners of reading. Teachers must constantly strive to expand their perspective of how to incorporate the dialogue included in prior knowledge assessment. Teachers must also consider how…

The authors review five major findings in reading comprehension and their implications for educational practice. First, research suggests that comprehension skills are separable from decoding processes and important at early ages, suggesting that comprehension skills should be targeted early, even before the child learns to read. Second, there is…