Editor’s Note: Click on the words highlighted in this story to pull up a definition and short research summary. Reading comprehension is a complex endeavor. It’s heavily dependent on learning new ...

Nearly a half century ago, a landmark study showed that teachers weren’t explicitly teaching reading comprehension. Once children learned how to read words, no one taught them how to make sense of the ...

“Knowledge-building” has become a buzzword in reading instruction. It refers to English/language arts approaches that aim to systematically build students’ understanding of the world—rather than ...

There’s been a lot of concern about phonics instruction in recent months, sparked by an illuminating new audio documentary. But there’s another aspect of reading—comprehension—that is equally crucial, ...

Discusses the importance of identifying "Big Ideas" in reading comprehension. It contrasts two boys, Pete and Sam, where Pete effectively extracts key concepts from texts while Sam struggles. Using ...

Nearly a half century ago, a landmark study showed that teachers weren’t explicitly teaching reading comprehension. Once ...

While this problem has received considerable attention, no clear explanation has emerged. In my recent PhD thesis, I considered a crucial, but often overlooked, piece of the puzzle – the curriculum ...