Prior knowledge is one of the strongest contributors to comprehension, but there is little specificity about different aspects of prior knowledge and how they impact comprehension. This article introduces the Multidimensional Knowledge in Text Comprehension framework, which conceptualizes prior knowledge along four intersecting dimensions: amount,…

Prior knowledge is one of the strongest contributors to comprehension, but there is little specificity about different aspects of prior knowledge and how they impact comprehension. This article introduces the Multidimensional Knowledge in Text Comprehension framework, which conceptualizes prior knowledge along four intersecting dimensions: amount,…

With increased availability of information in modern societies, individuals are often faced with complex decisions regarding how to integrate and judge the veracity of available information. Generally, these issues have been approached using computational techniques to "detect" and "reduce" the spread of information across…

Literacy is a critically important and contemporary issue for educators, scientists, and politicians. Efforts to overcome the challenges associated with illiteracy, and the subsequent development of literate societies, are closely related to those of poverty reduction and sustainable human development. In this paper, the authors examine literacy…

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…

Two experiments investigated the role of text coherence in junior high school students' comprehension of science texts. Found that text coherence improved readers' comprehension, but also that giving readers with sufficient background knowledge an incoherent text that forced them to infer unstated relations engaged them in compensatory processing,…