Direct instruction of reading strategies, such as the 'structure strategy', is demonstrated to be effective for the development of more mature and skilled reading processes in struggling readers. This instructional intervention approach, aimed at directly improving reading ability, can be used in combination with text simplification. Text…

The Common Core State Standards emphasize the value of teaching students to engage with complex text. But what exactly makes a text complex, and how can teachers help students develop their ability to learn from such texts? The authors of this article discuss five factors that determine text complexity: vocabulary, sentence structure, coherence,…

This article presents a case study research with aims to find out which activities, methodological and textual aspects used in a reading strategies course were causing a group of students difficulties when analyzing critically written information. We conducted the study at Universidad de Córdoba (Colombia) with seventh semester students from the…

Interviews with 16 deaf high school students and 9 teachers found that teachers underestimated the extent of students' independent comprehension of 3 types of text. The text perceived to be most difficult by both teachers and students was the most interesting to students (but not teachers) and fostered use of a greater variety of metacognitive…