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No, Teachers Don’t Have To Choose Between Knowledge And Strategies

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Educators don’t need to choose between building students’ knowledge and teaching reading comprehension strategies. The question is how to bring in strategies and when.

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Don’t discard comprehension strategies - Five from Five

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Share this post Dr Jennifer Buckingham, 23 June 2023 As greater consensus has been reached about how to teach children to decode and read words fluently, the focus of discussion among practitioners and researchers has shifted to reading comprehension. Some of this discussion has centred on the utility of teaching comprehension skills and strategies explicitly […]

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The purpose of reading, according to Elder and Paul (2006:3) is to 'figure out what an author has to say on a subject'. This 'figuring out', or reading comprehension as we know it in schools, has become a proxy for reading ability and the manner in which reading ability is assessed and measured ( see Tarjinder's exc ellent post here). As such, the teaching of reading comprehension as a skill became ubiquitous throughout the last few decades (see here) and the way of assessing reading comprehension is, of course, the reading comprehension test.

But consider whether a reading comprehension test actually assesses reading comprehension. The nature of any comprehension test requires the assessed pupil to read a text and then answer questions related to that text based on a series of assessment criteria. This is not, however, how it seems we extract meaning from a text. According to Pressley and Afflerbach (1995), comprehension is a moment by moment process during the act of reading. The mind is assailed by every word in the moment of reading and is thus charged with determining which words to repress, emphasise, correlate and organise as it constructs the right weight, influence and force for each expression, all under the influence of establishing purpose and meaning from a non-present communicator (Thorndike, 1917). This results in meaning, the product of comprehension, never being stable. A change in one variable, knowledge for example, will alter the construction of meaning with the product of comprehension changing moment by moment (Pearson, 2001).

Rather than the extraction of information from text, which is what comprehension tests require, readers actually interact with information in the text in order to make sense of it (Palincsar and Brown, 1989), drawing on information from several sources concurrently to construct meaning. As a reader progresses through a text, they attend to the information and combine it with vocabulary knowledge, language conventions, semantic knowledge and general and disciplinary knowledge. The reader is continually updating the new information and relating it to prior content knowledge and integrating it with knowledge gleaned from the text, drawing connections and making inferences from within and without the text (Beck et al. 1997).

A comprehension test cannot assess this understanding and it can certainly not assess the primary goal of deep reading: 'understanding the meaning of a text such that this knowledge can be used later' (Allen and McNamara, 2020, p262).

For an assessment to be valid, it must measure what it purports to measure otherwise it is worthless (Cohen et al. 2015). So, if a reading comprehension test does not measure reading comprehension then it does not appear to have very much value...if any.

This has significant implications for the development of reading comprehension in schools and the assessment of it.

Firstly, the teaching of comprehension as a skills-based construct has no place in reading education despite the improvements in comprehension outcomes associated with this approach ( see here). Teaching comprehension skills is a test-based and focused construct driven by the assessment. It puts the cart before the horse. The skills taught and learned will certainly improve test outcomes and, by implication, statutory assessment results but are unlikely to improve reading comprehension beyond the benefits of reading practice. Take, for example, the skills-based reading programme 'Success For All', which reports significant gains in reading test outcomes. Pupils are taught to take the role of 'Text Detective' when questions requiring inference are addressed and encouraged to 'read between the lines' to find the answer. But as Willingham (2015) posits (great blog from Clare Sealy), authors require readers to infer what they assume the reader already knows and therefore omit. How can a reader infer what they don't know? This is possibly why skills-based comprehension had such robust research initially: because researchers used comprehension test data and that is exactly what skills-based comprehension teaching improved. It may also be why 'Success For All', according to Jonathon Kozol (2006), cannot sustain its results, with students, one year after leaving the programme, in significant reading deficit, and three years after leaving, unable to read. So incensed was Kozol (2006) that he described it as, '...an apartheid course of study for an apartheid schooling system.'

The next implication for the development of reading comprehension within schools is an understanding of the role that prior knowledge plays in the extraction of meaning from text. This is nothing new - although it may seem like it sometimes. Bartlett, as long ago as 1932, described "schemata" as organisations of past experience and Ausubel (1963:18) claimed that 'the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows.' Anderson et al.'s (1977) study on the interpretation of ambiguous passages in text concluded that reader's interpretations of messages from text were heavily influenced by high level schemata.

Kintsch's (1998) 'Construction-Integration Model' of reading comprehension is particularly helpful (Rayner et al. 2012) as it portrays comprehension as having three distinct layers. At the first level readers identify the words and phrases that make up the text. At the second level the reader uses information from the text, allied to their own knowledge to form a basic idea about notions proposed by the text. At the third level, however, the reader elaborates ideas and events from the text by integrating them with related prior knowledge to create a fully fleshed out mental representation of the text. And it is this deep, rich, coherent understanding, argues Kintsch (1998), that readers are seeking as it is associated with learning from a text rather than merely reading a text - not something a comprehension test can easily measure, if at all

Kintsch's (1998) model dovetails with the concept of top down and bottom up reading comprehension strategies (Carrell, 1989; Young and Oxford, 1997). Readers who utilise a bottom up strategy (usually novice readers) understand texts at a local level through word decoding and sentence parsing thus, creating meaning from the read words. Readers who utilise a top down strategy bring a global perspective to their reading (Mills et al., 2006), utilising wide contextual and domain knowledge and deep understanding of complex semantic structures and patterns to create meaning with the read words (Afflerbach, 1986; Shapiro, 2004).

'Reading comprehension and knowledge have a reciprocal relationship in which knowledge supports comprehension and comprehension builds new knowledge...' (Cervetti and Wright, 2020); or as Pearson (2006) put it, 'knowledge begets comprehension begets knowledge.'

There are, nevertheless, different kinds of knowledge, which in turn, it appears, have differing impacts on reading comprehension. Topic knowledge (closely related to the topic of a text) appears to have a consistently positive impact on questions that require bridging inferences and connecting ideas and information within a text (Pearson et al.,1979), whereas domain knowledge (related to a disciplinary area, eg. biology) appears to benefit the identification of themes and gist within a text and the answering of questions that require background knowledge (Haenggi and Perfetti, 1992). Cultural knowledge has been shown to support comprehension of narrative texts with student's showing far greater understanding of texts with themes and characters consistent with their own socio-cultural experiences (Bell and Clark, 1998; Kelley et al., 2015) suggesting that where this is not the case, explicit investigation of cultural knowledge may be useful and necessary. More general, or world knowledge, has a greater positive effect on the comprehension of expository texts rather than narrative texts but still appears to be important for understanding of narrative (Best et al., 2008).

It is perhaps unsurprising that making inferences places a greater demand on prior knowledge compared to recall. Knowledge allows readers to selectively focus on the most important ideas in a text and form stronger connections among individual elements (Cervetti and Wright, 2020). This helps readers connect a series of discrete pieces of information into meaningful parts and chains, such as sequences, cause-effect relationships and plots. The integration of text with prior knowledge enables the reader to employ bridging inferences and in-text inferences thus, enabling the reader to learn from the text (Kintsch, 1986).

Furthermore, strong background knowledge supports vocabulary development (Puilido, 2007). The link between vocabulary and content knowledge, particularly in expository texts has a significant research base with strong background knowledge supporting high rates of incidental vocabulary learning while reading (Puilido, 2003, 2004, 2007). It has been suggested that high levels of knowledge are a proxy for vocabulary (Moje et al., 2020). (More on vocabulary in the next TRA post).

Knowledge and reading ability do appear to make complementary contributions to reading comprehension. High levels of reading ability allied with excellent prior knowledge result in highly effective comprehension (Cervetti and Wright, 2020); however, particularly in younger readers, good topic and domain knowledge can compensate for less effective reading ability (Recht and Leslie, 1988; Taylor, 1979). Younger readers, nevertheless, often require explicit instruction (from a teacher) in making meaningful connections between knowledge and inferencing (Rapp et al., 2007). Furthermore, high levels of prior knowledge can benefit students when reading texts with less cohesion which require greater inference during reading (McNamara et al., 1996).

So, if prior knowledge is a key element of extracting deep meaning from a text how can schools and teachers focus on this rather than on comprehension as a 'skill'?

Studies appear to suggest that the activation of prior knowledge for students is the answer; but only once there is knowledge to activate. Where students have merely been questioned about their prior knowledge in an attempt to activate it, comprehension of text has not improved (Peek et al., 1982) and activating inaccurate prior knowledge may negatively impact comprehension (Van Loon et al., 2013). More effective, is where students have received explicit topic and domain knowledge instruction prior to attempting to read a text (Elbro and Buch-Iversen, 2013).

This building of specific prior knowledge to support reading comprehension appears to be key (Guthrie et al., 2004). Cervetti and Wright (2020) suggest that it is the building and leveraging of conceptual, disciplinary, cultural and world knowledge that are the most powerful elements to support reading comprehension and thus developing students' engagement with texts. A conclusion seems to be appearing from the research that if students are to extract deep, rich and coherent meaning from any text, then they must first have sufficient prior knowledge, and that this knowledge needs to be explicitly taught.

This emphasis on knowledge as a fundament of comprehension implies that 'close reading' of text is thus not per se a necessary comprehension activity and perhaps even that knowledge can compensate for text complexity.

This is not borne out by the research which suggests that exposure to complex syntactic structures and language features is an essential element of developing deep reading comprehension (Just and Carpenter, 1992). Hiebert (2017) suggested that where teachers use texts simplified for readability (usually in areas of higher social deprivation), reading comprehension of more complex texts is compromised. For deep learning to occur. Hiebert concluded, students should be exposed to the complex language structures of texts above instructional level. Furthermore, studies revealed that students often read for less than four minutes per English class (Fisher, 2009) with the majority of the time taken up with watching films or listening to lectures and teacher-led comprehension was observed as little as 20% of the time (Vaughn et al., 2013). For deep comprehension to develop, students need to read a great deal, read complex texts, have the comprehension scaffolded by an expert (teacher) and have regular opportunities to discuss the text (Litman et al., 2017).

The research appears to suggest the following 'best bets' for schools:

* Reading comprehension is not 'the next stage in reading'. The artificial divide between 'learning to read' and 'reading to learn' is a misapplication of Chall's (1983) stages of reading development. Comprehension develops in tandem with reading acquisition and is aligned with listening comprehension and developing schema.

* Reading comprehension is not a skill and should only be taught as such as an exam technique.

* Prior knowledge is fundamental to reading comprehension and crucial for inference. Knowledge comes in many forms. For a pupil to be able to understand a text they must be furnished with sufficient knowledge to be able to read it with a top down, global perspective.

* This relevant knowledge must be built explicitly...

* ...by teachers.

* Knowledge of complex language and syntactic structures is essential to reading comprehension. Regular exposure to these structures is essential through experience with high-quality texts above instructional level. Students will require expert, explicit scaffolding to negotiate these text...

* ...from teachers.

* Reading comprehension is also a factor of vocabulary. Vocabulary is a function of greater knowledge. Vocabulary grows more quickly through explicit teaching. Students' vocabulary appears to grow more quickly in classes where the environment is rich in language and teachers have a wide vocabulary. This is particularly important in early schooling and in areas of higher social and economic need.

A final thought on statutory assessment:

The conclusion that comprehension tests are an invalid assessment of reading comprehension begs the question: how can we measure it? It would seem that we can't. There is just too much going in in the brain. So why bother? To hold schools accountable for ensuring that children can read. So why not measure what we can measure. We can measure words read per minute and we can measure reading accuracy. Not very satisfactory? Not according to Rasinski et al. (2015); it seems that words-read-per-minute is a very accurate proxy for academic outcome.

And if we can't measure reading comprehension...at least we now know how to teach it.

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IS READING COMPREHENSION AN ACTUAL THING?

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The purpose of reading, according to Elder and Paul (2006:3) is to 'figure out what an author has to say on a subject'.

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Knowledge Building for Reading Comprehension

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Knowledge Building for Reading Comprehension

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This is the third in a series of four articles on how educators can support literacy by bringing knowledge-building into their classrooms (read the , , and posts). Our group of 14 scholars has distilled a rich body of research into 10 practical recommendations for educators. In this article, we discuss recommendations 4- 6, how quality texts can be accessed to build knowledge.

Complex, knowledge-rich texts that feature unfamiliar vocabulary and new ideas are a powerful gateway for building knowledge. How can students access such texts? Simply putting a complex book in a child's hands isn't enough-they must be taught to read texts fluently and must be able to comprehend what they are reading. There are core sense-making skills that capable readers deploy to understand and learn from the texts they are reading. The recommendations below focus on instructional strategies that build students' reading comprehension and expand their access to knowledge-building.

Read-alouds are a powerful tool for teachers to foster literacy development . Read-alouds expose students to vocabulary, syntax, and content that is more sophisticated than what they can read on their own. Even books written for preschoolers expose children to vocabulary that is rarer, and more varied, than the vocabulary found in everyday conversation , and can be more syntactically complex as well . Read-alouds also turn the typically solitary act of reading into a group activity, with students listening, talking, and learning together. When students dialog about a text during a reading, they are developing their ability to engage in conversations about a text. Furthermore, read-alouds can be joyful and motivational for young children and older students alike.

The polar bear lives in the Arctic, the area that surrounds the North Pole. Part of the Arctic is frozen, treeless land called tundra. Most of the Arctic is ocean. Ice covers the water most of the year. (Holiday House, 2002)

Read-alouds like this can build knowledge of things most children are unlikely to experience firsthand, such as the Arctic, and can similarly help to address inequities in children's opportunities to build knowledge due to lack of prior exposure.

Engaging in discussion about a text before, during, and after reading, can help build students' knowledge and support critical thinking skills. Examples of questions a teacher might ask include:

Read-alouds also provide opportunities for teachers to explicitly explain and to what goes on in a reader's mind as they read, which is part of effective comprehension instruction. The power of interactive read-alouds doesn't stop at the end of elementary school. Interactive read-alouds can contribute to knowledge-building well into adolescence and beyond.

We've all heard the adage that children first learn to read, and then they read to learn. Yet decades of research show that this is a false dichotomy. As described in previous articles in this series and in the preceding section, from the very beginning, children can build knowledge of the natural and social world through read-alouds and visual and experiential learning. They can also build knowledge through texts that they are learning to read themselves. As children are developing literacy foundational skills-concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, spelling, and fluency-they can be simultaneously building vocabulary and conceptual knowledge. As children develop as readers, they are able to read increasingly complex texts themselves and build more and more knowledge through that process.

Teachers do not need to choose between instruction that builds knowledge and that which teaches literacy foundational skills. They can occur in tandem and complement each other across a rich literacy curriculum.

It is obvious that developing literacy foundational skills is essential to children being able to read texts that build knowledge. However, the reverse is also true. Building content knowledge can contribute to word-reading development.

Content knowledge, in particular knowledge of concepts and the words that label them, supports . Orthographic mapping involves connecting and storing three types of information about a word: the word's phonology, or pronunciation; its orthography, or the way the word is written; and its semantics, or the meaning of the word. Orthographic mapping cannot occur without children developing vocabulary knowledge, which comes in significant part from building content knowledge. When children understand that a kit is a baby fox, they can more readily remember the sound, spelling, and meaning of the word "kit" and put that information to use when encountering new texts.

Content knowledge also helps children recognize when they've misread a word. For example, consider the sentence: "Most fish hatch from eggs." An early reader who does not yet know the tch trigraph might read this aloud as: "Most fish hath from eggs." or "Most fish hatkh from eggs." Content knowledge (or knowing that many animals hatch from eggs) leads the reader to recognize that those readings don't make sense, which signals them to go back and try decoding the word again.

Cross-checking to ensure that the word as they have decoded it is especially crucial in the busy world of a classroom. It may not be possible for teachers to alert each one of their students every time they misread a word. But increasing children's world knowledge will improve the likelihood that they will recognize a misread word on their own. For multilingual learners, building language and knowledge in the language(s) they are reading is crucial to support cross-checking their decoding while also supporting their language development . By ensuring students are building knowledge, engaging with knowledge-rich texts, and monitoring their comprehension of those texts, teachers can provide students with important tools to recognize misread words and try again to read them on their own.

Building knowledge from texts requires being able to read the words in the text and comprehend them. Proficient comprehenders are quite active as they read, engaging in mental moves to support their comprehension, particularly when they're finding the text to be difficult. These sense-making strategies can be taught within instruction that is focused on knowledge-building. Teaching students how to use these tools to access text and building knowledge are not in conflict. For example, research has demonstrated that elementary-school instruction that teaches text structures and builds knowledge improves reading outcomes compared to instruction that focuses on knowledge-building alone, without any detrimental effect on knowledge development.

Sense-making strategies are especially helpful for developing readers who struggle with comprehension. Research has long-identified a significant subgroup of children who have grade-level word-reading skills yet struggle to comprehend text. There also are many children who need considerable support with both word reading and comprehension development.

One valuable tool for readers to better understand, and therefore build knowledge from what they read, is by attending to the way the author has organized the text, for example presenting a problem and then potential solutions, or conveyed similarities and differences between two entities. Explicitly teaching children to pay attention to how texts are structured and common organizational patterns that authors use has been shown in many studies to support informational text comprehension .

It helps students access texts when teachers provide them with explicit instruction on strategies they can use as they are preparing to read. Teachers can instruct students to set goals for reading by considering their purposes for reading (e.g., what they want to learn or gain from the text). Students also benefit from learning how to preview a text. This includes assessing what they already know and don't know about the content, articulating what they might learn by reading and attending to the text's structure, and introducing key vocabulary and concepts. Deeper preview, aided by, for example, read-alouds or videos, is helpful toward preparing students' interest and understanding of texts with topics that might otherwise be too unfamiliar or difficult for students to grasp on their own.

Students benefit from explicit instruction in comprehension monitoring, in which they monitor their success in understanding and learning from text while they read. For example, students can be taught to ask questions and pay attention to whether they can answer them.

Students can be taught to stop and rereadportions of the text so that they can make connections, put the pieces together, and understand the text from various angles. Also effective is instruction in getting the gist -teaching students to ascertain the key points an author intends to convey by paraphrasing, clarifying, explaining, or summarizing small portions of the text. Strategies designed to support comprehension should be invoked in service of understanding the text at hand; there is a lack of evidence for isolated comprehension strategies instruction that does not ask students to reflect on the content of the text.

Asking students to ask and answer questionsposed before or during reading is shown to increase both memory and comprehension of what they've read. Similarly, students benefit from summarizing their texts and from pulling together key points that the author has aimed to communicate across larger portions of the text. While discussion is invaluable, the impact of having children write about what they've read is tremendous. When students are regularly engaged in writing about their reading, it is shown to boost not only the quality of their writing but also their and overall . This finding applies to English learners as well as to students already proficient in English. Finally, instruction that includes a "balance" of reading and writing produces better outcomes in both.

Important practices for helping students access and therefore build knowledge with texts include reading aloud material too difficult for students to access on their own; developing foundational skills that enable students to fluently read increasingly complex texts; and explicitly teaching text structures and comprehension. Included in the next article will be a discussion of the nature and diversity of those texts.

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Helping Students Access Complex, Knowledge-Rich Texts

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Three key text-related strategies that support reading comprehension.

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What's stopping us from teaching reading comprehension really well?

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On a scale of 1-10, how good are you at comprehending what people say to you?

It's a bit of a silly question, isn't it? Whether or not we comprehend what we are told is dependent on our grasp of the individual words being used, the concepts to which they relate and how these interact to convey meaning. Talk to me about the first nine seasons of The Simpsons using familiar words and I'll comprehend pretty well. Talk to me about your favourite "anguilliform" Pokemon character and I'll probably stare at you blankly. Yes, there are some basic capacities that underpin our ability to understand what people say aloud, such as our hearing and our working memory capacity. But - on the assumption that these things aren't an impediment - our ability to comprehend what we are told is dependent on what we know about the subject at hand and the words being used to describe it. In other words, there is no generic listening comprehension ability. There is instead a vast network of understanding that determines the extent to which we can construct meaning from the words we hear. Trying to determine - or, heaven forbid, quantify - a person's ability to comprehend what they are told would rely on some way of measuring their grasp of all there is to know about the world and the language used to describe it. How do you measure a person's entire understanding of their world and their language? How do you effectively sample a domain this extensive? Answer: you can't.

And this brings me on to reading comprehension. Our ability to comprehend what we read is reliant on much the same network of understanding that is required for listening comprehension. Let's assume that we can recognise the words on a page fluently enough to free up the cognitive resources necessary for comprehension. Under these circumstances, whether or not we comprehend what we read is dependent on our grasp of the individual words being used, the concepts to which they relate and how these interact to convey meaning. Just as with listening comprehension, this is a domain so vast as to rule out valid assessment. To be clear, what I'm suggesting is that - beyond the development of relatively fluent word recognition* - our ability to comprehend what we read is based on everything we know about our world and our language, alongside an additional layer of knowledge related to written text conventions (e.g. punctuation, sub-headings, italics, etc). How do you measure a person's entire understanding of their world, their language and the conventions of written texts? Answer: you can't.

So, we've established that trying to measure reading comprehension is a non-starter.** From this, we can assume that the results from reading comprehension assessments need to be interpreted very cautiously, especially on the level of the individual pupil.

And this is where this blogpost would end if reading comprehension assessment hadn't warped the teaching of reading. But it has. A lot. For the sake of assessment, teachers have been incentivised to see reading comprehension as a generic skill, or, more precisely, a small set of generic skills. If this perspective were a canvas, it would look something like this:

Here is reading comprehension ability interpreted as a small collection of generic skills, things like retrieval, prediction and summarising. Reading comprehension assessments tend to divide the questions they use into a few categories such as these. Countless teachers and school leaders have thus made the understandable leap that teaching reading comprehension is the process of building up each of these generic comprehension skills. They attempt to add another broad-brushstroke layer to a pupil's prediction skill as a means of filling up the canvas. This conveniently allows for the creation of medium-term plans that state that a given class is working on prediction or inference or some other generic skill. It also allows schools to make lists related to those skills that can be ticked off as children develop. If we're going to gather evidence of a pupil's reading comprehension development, then what we presumably need is a small set of statements that correspond to a relatively small set of generic skills. This interpretation of reading comprehension achieves that.

The problem, of course, is that this interpretation is completely bogus. It is based on a view of reading comprehension that is palpably false. Yes, when we comprehend what we read, we tend to be able to retrieve information, to make predictions, to summarise what we have read, etc, and doing this stuff while we read is a useful set of habits that keeps us awake to what we are doing.*** But this is an unhelpful way to visualise our ability to comprehend what we read. I'd argue that this is better:

Forget for a moment the exact scene being portrayed, and consider the means of portraying it. Here reading comprehension ability is interpreted as a vast interacting network of understanding. It is not built up through broad brushstrokes, but through the painstaking accumulation of knowledge about words, texts and the wider world to which they relate. The natural consequence of such an interpretation is that the teaching of reading comprehension must prioritise the guided exploration of text, involving lots of reading and lots of rich discussion. Retrieval, prediction, summarising, etc will naturally form a part of this, but developing these habits is not the central goal of reading comprehension lessons. The central goal of reading comprehension lessons is to understand the specific text being read and the world to which it relates through exploration of the text's use of language. Everything else is secondary.

However, this interpretation leaves us with some problems. I've lost count of the number of school leaders and teachers who - despite their instinctive enthusiasm for this content-focused conception of reading comprehension - have asked the same two questions:

1. "How would we evidence this?"

2. "What would this look like in terms of our long-term planning?"

I will address these two questions in turn:

The answer to (1) is simple: Don't bother.

I'm serious. Just don't bother. Ofsted have made it abundantly clear that they don't want teachers gathering evidence for its own sake. If your method of assessment requires you to pretend that reading comprehension is something that it clearly is not, then it's time to dump that method of assessment. Think instead about how fluently your children read and how much they know about the English language and the wider world. The former can be assessed by hearing children read aloud and by undertaking quick fluency assessments; the latter, however, is not accessible via reference to simple rubrics. Standardised reading assessments may give a very rough idea, but they are not to be relied upon as precise measures of individual progress for all the reasons explained above. It's time to accept that there are some things that we can measure and other things that we cannot and to change our assessment decisions accordingly.

The answer to (2) is a little more difficult. Think back to the canvas above. To build up a picture like that, many thousands of dots are added across the breadth of the canvas, each chosen partly based on its relationship to the other dots on the canvas. In a content-focused view of teaching reading comprehension, our planning must focus on the content being read - the characters, the themes, the text features, the aspects of the world being described, etc. And it must do so in relation to the rest of that which has been, and will be, added to the canvas. In short, stop focusing on how non-existent generic comprehension skills will be taught. Instead focus on the texts themselves - not least their variety and their relationship to the rest of the curriculum**** - and on how you will ensure that pupils learn lots about them.

A content-focused approach to the teaching of reading comprehension aligns with a more accurate view of reading comprehension. It allows teachers to do away with pointless, time-consuming forms of assessment. It encourages school leaders to re-imagine their reading curriculum primarily in terms of the texts to be shared. Most of all, it offers our pupils a more authentic, enriching and effective experience of reading.

So, what's stopping us from teaching reading comprehension really well? Absolutely nothing.

If you'd like to find out more about teaching reading, please consider my book, The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading: link

All royalties will be going to the Malaria Consortium, a Give-Well-recommended charity.

* Fluent word recognition is also dependent on our broader language comprehension alongside our knowledge of phoneme-grapheme relationships, phonemic skills, etc.

** The Teachwell blog has an excellent series on this idea: http://www.teach-well.com/reforming-the-key-stage-2-reading-sat-why-its-needed-and-possible/

*** There is lots of research into comprehension strategies. This blog is a good place to start if you want to know more: https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/comprehension-skills-or-strategies-is-there-a-difference-and-does-it-matter#sthash.ZC5WlzWX.dpbs

**** This does not mean that every text has to directly relate to something else in your wider curriculum. It might even be the case that texts are chosen precisely because of how they supplement the curriculum. (E.g. If a primary history curriculum doesn't include a study of a South American civilisation, a non-fiction text relating to the Maya civilisation might be an apt choice to add breadth to the pupils' understanding of the challenging - and often controversial - concept of civilisation.)

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What's stopping us from teaching reading comprehension really well?

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On a scale of 1-10, how good are you at comprehending what people say to you? It's a bit of a silly question, isn't it? Whether or not we comprehend what we are told is dependent on our grasp of the individual words being used, the concepts to which they relate and how these interact...

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This is a copy of the simplified reading map that I tend to use in professional development:

I'm just dropping this into a blog-post as I suspect that this will forever be a work progress, and I'd like it to be kept somewhere accessible in case anyone is interested. It can be found here: link to basic reading map

An older, more complicated version of the reading map looks like this:

This map can be downloaded here: link to older, more complicated reading map

As ever, constructive feedback is appreciated.

I am an experienced primary school teacher, school leader and reading consultant from Peterborough, England. Find me on Twitter @Suchmo83 View all posts by @Suchmo83

Published

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This is a copy of the simplified reading map that I tend to use in professional development: I'm just dropping this into a blog-post as I suspect that this will forever be a work progress, and I'd like it to be kept somewhere accessible in case anyone is interested.

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Main Idea Instruction | Shanahan on Literacy

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This blog entry explains why main idea instruction tends to be ineffective at raising reading achievement and explains the instructional features that do improve reading ability.

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Research has shown that students can be taught to comprehend the material better while they are reading. Successful instruction of this type has usually focused on the teaching of comprehension strategies--that is, intentional actions students can use during reading to guide their thinking. Such strategies improve both understanding and memory. Some strategies that have been successfully taught include summarization, questioning, story maps, comprehension monitoring, and graphic organizers; however, the teaching of the combined use of multiple strategies has been most effective in improving reading. Strategy teaching is most effective when it takes a gradual release-of-responsibility approach in which the teacher models the strategy use ("I do it"), guides students to use it successfully within reading ("We do it"), and then assigns independent practice with the strategy ("You do it"). Reading comprehension instruction needs to take place in both narrative and expository text. Appended are (1) Tables; and (2) Resources. [This report was produced by Learning Point Associates.]

Learning Point Associates/North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1120 E Diehl Rd., Suite 220, Naperville, IL 60563. Tel: 630-649-6500; 800-356-2735; Fax: 630-649-6734; Web site: http://www.ncrel.org/

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ERIC - ED489535 - The National Reading Panel Report. Practical Advice for Teachers, Learning Point Associates / North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), 2005

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Research has shown that students can be taught to comprehend the material better while they are reading. Successful instruction of this type has usually focused on the teaching of comprehension strategies--that is, intentional actions students can use during reading to guide their thinking. Such strategies improve both understanding and memory.

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Iowa Reading Research Center - The University of Iowa

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Often times, when students have trouble answering questions about a text, it is assumed that they did not read the text or were not paying close enough attention while reading. For many students, however, this is not the case. They did read or listen, they are just unsure of how to locate information within the text to help them answer the question posed. Students need to be explicitly taught how to recognize the questions being asked and how to locate the information to help them answer.

One approach that can help students do this is the Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) strategy (Raphael, 1982, 1984). This strategy teaches students how to distinguish the types of questions they are being asked and how to find the answers to those questions. According to Raphael and Au (2005), the QAR framework provides a clear language for readers to use when talking about the reading. QAR empowers students to build an understanding of the text while using literal and higher-level thinking skills.

The Four Types of Questions in the QAR Strategy

Right There: A literal one-answer question with information clearly provided in the text. Readers are prompted to look within the text for key words or phrases used in the question to find the answers. The answers provided will be very similar as there is often one best answer.

Think and Search: This type of question can be answered using information from within the text, but it is not clearly located in one spot. Readers need to think and search several sections of the text to find pieces of information and then piece them together to come up with an answer.

Author and Me: Answers to these questions are not found solely in the text. Using information from the text and their own background and experiences, readers will make inferences to help answer the question. While the answer is not clearly in the text, the reader does need to read it to fit it all together. The answers will be more varied, as readers are using their own experiences to build their ideas.

On My Own: The answer is not found in the text. This type of question requires readers to use their background or prior knowledge and own ideas to answer the question. The answers provided will be less dependent on the text and more dependent on the reader's experiences and knowledge. There will be a great deal of variance between answers.

How Do I Teach the QAR Strategy to My Students?

With minor adjustments, Question-Answer Relationship instruction can be implemented with all grade levels and across content areas. In early elementary classrooms, teachers may focus on questions provided by the text, the "Right There" and "Think and Search" questions. Instruction may contain strategies in identifying if the question is found in one place in the text, or if the student has to search a variety of locations to identify the answer. As students progress and learn to identify the "Right There" and "Think and Search" questions, teachers may introduce strategies to identify "Author and Me" and "On Your Own" questions during the intermediate grades. Students are taught to identify how to determine if the answer is in the book, or if they need to draw on their own experiences and opinions to answer. Teachers also will spend time teaching key identifiers to determine from where the answer will come, thus increasing students' understanding of how questions are written and where the answer can be located.

Researchers agree that explicit instruction is an effective practice and can help all students, especially those struggling with comprehension, develop the necessary set of skills to tackle a variety of texts (Archer & Hughes, 2011; Fielding, Kerr, & Rosier, 2007; Stevens, Van Meter, Garner, & Warcholak, 2008; Torgesen, 2004). Ripley, Blair, and Nichols (2009) state that "explicitly teaching reading means imparting new information to students through meaningful teacher-student interactions and teacher guidance of student learning" (p. 126). For the QAR strategy to be effective and become a part of students' comprehension strategies, teachers must provide immediate feedback on identifying the type of question being asked, how to find information, and how to answer the question, using Duke and Pearson's (2002) explicit teaching model (see Figure 1 below). Let us look in detail at how to apply the explicit teaching model to the QAR strategy.

Figure 1. Explicit Teaching Model

This figure summarizes the explicit teaching model as described by Duke & Pearson (2002).

An Explicit Description of the Strategy

Using age-appropriate language, explain the QAR strategy, including the four different types of questions and when and how to identify and answer each type when reading. Introduce each question type individually in a short explicit lesson. While learning each question type, students should only be responsible for identifying the type(s) they have learned.

Modeling the Strategy in Action by Both the Teacher and Students

Select a short passage, identify a set of questions for each question type, and write down both the questions and answers (see guide below under "Supplemental Materials for Teachers"). These questions will be used during your short lessons that focus on each question type. After reading the passage to the students, model how you would identify the type of question and provide an answer. Make your thought process visible to the students as you walk them through the process of deciding how to identify the correct type of question.

You will need to teach each type of question and how to find the answers for your students. You may also need to model several examples of the same types of questions and answers as you slowly have students participate in helping you determine question type and possible answers.

In order to provide examples, we will use The Three Little Pigs as the example text. After reading the story on your own and coming up with your example questions, take each question type one at a time and think aloud with students through the questions and answers as you read the story aloud with the students (teacher dialogues is in italics below).

Right There Example Question
A "Right There" question will have words that are both in the question and the answer. With this type of question, we know that we need to look right in the text for the answer. I can skim the text I just read to find key words included in the question that will help me find the answer. The answer is in one place. I can find it and point to it. A "Right There" question is one that will be found in the book. Now that we know what a "Right There" question is, let us try and answer one. "What did the wolf do at the first pig's house?" I am going to use the clue words "What did the wolf do ..." to help me answer my question. Now, I am going to skim the text and look for key words about the wolf and the first pig's house. I can see in the text where the wolf "huffed and puffed and blew the first pig's house down." That answers my question about what the wolf did at the first pig's house. He huffed and puffed and blew it down. This is a "Right There" question because I can find the answer right in the text.
Think and Search Example Question
A "Think and Search" question is a lot like a "Right There" question, except I cannot find my answer in one spot. I need to think about what is being asked and search the text to put together my answer from different parts of the text. Though I will have to search through the different parts of the text to find my answer, there will be key words from the question in the text that will help me answer the question. A "Think and Search" question is one that will be found in the book. Now that we know what a "Think and Search" question is, let us try and answer one. "What type of house did each pig build?" There are some clues that help me know this is a "Think and Search" question and not a "Right There" question. I know that the question is asking me to think about the house that each pig built, so I know I will need to search the text in several places to find the answer. I will not find the answer in one spot like a "Right There" question. This "Think and Search" question requires me to skim multiple parts of the book to find the answer. I am going to search for each pig and see if I can find what kind of house they built. After searching, I found that the first pig builds a house of straw. The second pig An "Author and Me" question is a question that cannot be answered by looking only in the text. An "Author and Me" question involves an answer that will be found in your head. To answer this type of question, you need to use what you read in the text (the author) and what you already know (me). When you use the text and what you already know, you start to fit ideas together to come up with an answer. You need to read the text and understand it to make connections to what you already know to answer "Author and Me" questions. Now that we know what an "Author and Me" question is, let us try and answer one. "Do you think it is okay for the first two pigs to move in with the third pig after their houses were blown down by the wolf? Why or why not?" After reading this question, I know that there is not An "On My Own" question is a question that cannot be answered by looking in the text. The question involves an answer that will be found in your head. "On My Own" questions can be answered using my own ideas and experiences. I do not have to be familiar with the text to answer this type of question. Now that we know what an "On My Own" question is, let us try and answer one. one right answer that can be found in the text. The words "why or why not" help me know that this question is asking about my own ideas. I know from reading the text that the two pigs moved in with the third pig after their houses were blown down, but it did not tell me if it was okay for the pigs to do that. To answer this question, I need to use my own experiences or ideas to decide if that is okay or not. I cannot find that answer only in the text. It is more in my head. I am going to have to use clues from the text and my own ideas to come up with an answer. I remember reading about the momma pig telling her sons to work hard and not take the easy way out. I think the third pig was the only one to listen to his mom and so his house was the safest. I do not think it was fair for the other two pigs to just go to his house and expect him to let them in when they did not try their best. To answer this question, I had to use clues from the story and my own ideas to come up with an answer. a house of sticks, and the third pig a house of bricks. I had to search and find my answer in the text.
Author and Me Example Question

On My Own Example Question

"What kind of house would you pick to live in if you had a choice?" This question does not have one right answer. It is a question that does not require me to know that much about the story "The Three Little Pigs." Again, I can see that the question is asking about my own ideas so I know I cannot find this answer in the text. It is an "On My Own" question. I will have to use my own ideas to answer this question. Like the third pig, I want a safe house to live in, but I also want a fun house. I have seen pictures of amazing luxury or fancy tree houses. They look like they are strong and would last for a long time. Living in one of those houses would be great fun. You would be close to nature but still safe and comfortable in your fancy house. I answered the question on my own. The text did not really help me find my answer. It was my own ideas and opinions. (Editor's Note: This type of question is not text-dependent and, therefore, is not aligned with college and career readiness standards. However, it is one of the QAR types and encourages creative thinking.)

Working Collaboratively to Use the Strategy in Action

After modeling each question type, read a new passage with the students, present them with a series of questions, work with them to identify the types of questions, and determine how to find the answers. To begin, guide students with more teacher support until eventually, they are ready to apply the strategy on their own. Slowly, begin to step back or release responsibility for learning to the students. You may ask a question, prompting students to give you the category it fits under. Then together you may come up with possible answers.

For example, as you continue to read The Three Little Pigs, you may ask students a question, help them determine the type of question, and then how to find the answer(s):

"What type of house did each pig build?" Help me decide what type of question I am asking [Provide students the question type names and have them help you decide]. This question has a few key words that help me know I can find the answer in the text, but I am going to have to search for it. What type of question do we need to look for our answer in multiple parts of the text? That's right, a "Think and Search" question. When we have a "Think and Search" question, we know that we need to look in the text to find our answer. We may have to look in several different places. Help me look back in the book and see if we can find the different houses each pig built [Together as a class, you will search the book and come up with the correct answer of straw, sticks, and bricks].

Next, you may ask a question and have students work in small groups to decide on the question type and how to answer it. At each stage, it is important to help students develop the vocabulary to determine the type of question and provide information on how to answer it. Depending on the type of question asked, this could include comments about using key words, looking in different places for information, or using what students already know to help make a guess at what would happen next.

Independent Use of the Strategy

Once students can identify the question type and how to formulate answers, have them work with partners and eventually on their own to identify and answer questions. Students who can independently use the strategy should apply it without teacher prompts or support when asked a question or responding to a written question about a text they are reading, such as a test or workbook activity.

Developing students' question identification skills is an effective way to move them from passive participants to active meaning makers. Students will be able to identify the questions being asked, how to locate answers in the text, and draw from their own opinions and experiences. By doing so, their overall understanding of what is being asked, and thus their comprehension, will increase. Teachers who embrace the practice of teaching students to identify what types of questions they are being asked are preparing students to engage in a lifelong journey of seeking answers and broadening understanding through reading.

Supplemental Materials for Teachers

QAR Questions and Answers by Type: A guide to use when teaching students the QAR strategy to help teachers plan which questions to ask for the four question types and an answer that might be given.

References

Archer, A. L., & Hughes, C. A. (2011). Explicit instruction: Effective and efficient teaching. New York, NY: Guilford.

Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed., pp. 205-242). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Fielding, L., Kerr, N., & Rosier, P. (2007). Annual growth for all students: Catch-up growth for those who are behind. Washington, DC: New Foundation Press.

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Guide Students to Answers According to Question Type: The Question-Answer Relationship

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Teaching students to identify the type of question asked about a text using the Question-Answer Relationship strategy helps them formulate answers more easily.

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The question-answer relationship (QAR) comprehension strategy teaches students how to ask key questions about their reading, and then how to find the answers to their questions — whether it means locating a specific fact, drawing an inference, or connecting the reading to their own experience.

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Meyer, B. J. F. (1975). The organization of prose and its effects on memory. Amsterdam: North -Holland.

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Meyer, B. J. F., & Poon, L. W. (2001). Effects of the structure strategy and signaling on recall of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 141-159.

Meyer, B. J. F., Wijekumar, K., Middlemiss, W., Higley, K., Lei, P., Meier, C., & Spielvogel, J. (2010). Web-based tutoring of the structure strategy with or without elaborated feedback or choice for fifth- and seventh-grade readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 62-92.

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Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P. (2012). Large-scale randomized controlled trial with 4 th graders using intelligent tutoring of the structure strategy to improve nonfiction reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Technology Research and Development. 60, 987-1013.

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P.-W, Lin, Y., Johnson, L.A., Shurmatz, K., Spielvogel, J., Ray,M, & Cook, M. (2014). Improving reading comprehension for 5 th grade readers in rural and suburban schools using web-based intelligent tutoring systems. Journal of Research in Educational Effectiveness, 7:4, 331-357, DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2013.853333

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P-W, Hernandez, A., August, D. (in press). Effects of web-based text structure instruction for 4-6 th grade Spanish Els reading comprehension. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Williams, J. P., Hall, K. M., Lauer, K. D., Stafford, K. B., DeSisto, L. A., & deCani, J. S. (2005). Expository text comprehension in the primary grade classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 538-550.

Williams, J. P., Stafford, K. B., Lauer, K. D., Hall, K. M., & Pollini, S. (2009). Embedding reading comprehension training in content-area instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 1-20.

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Implementing the Text Structure Strategy in Your Classroom

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Learn how to implement a research-based text structure strategy that infuses text structures at every step of reading comprehension instruction, beginning with the introduction of the lesson, previewing of text, selecting important ideas, writing a main idea, generating inferences, and monitoring comprehension.

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Text Structure Video: Problem/Solution & Cause/Effect

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Text Structure Video: Problem/Solution & Cause/Effect

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Text Structure Techniques - Problem / Solution & Cause / Effect

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Text Structure Video: Sequence & Description

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Text Structure Video: Sequence & Description

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Text Structure Techniques - Sequence & Description

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Signal Words to indicate main idea/details

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Signal Words to indicate main idea/details

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Signal Words to indicate problem/solution

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Signal Words to indicate problem/solution

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Signal Words to indicate sequence of events

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Signal Words to indicate sequence of events

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Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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The Reading Teacher - 2021 - Duke - The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction

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Reciprocal teaching is a cooperative learning strategy that aims to improve students’ reading comprehension skills, with four components: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. A group of students take turns acting as the teacher in guiding the comprehension of a text.

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Reciprocal Teaching in the Primary Grades

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Reciprocal Teaching in the Primary Grades

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August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds.). (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Carlo, M.S., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C.E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D., et al. (2004). Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English language learners in bilingual and mainstream classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(2), 188-215. doi:10.1598/RRQ.39.2.3

Duke, N.K. (2000). 3.6 minutes per day: The scarcity of informational texts in first grade. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(2), 202-224. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.35.2.1

Echevarria, J., Short, D., & Powers, K. (2006). School reform and standards-based education: A model for English-language learners. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(4), 195-210. doi:10.3200/JOER.99.4.195-211

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Williams, J.P., Hall, K.M., Lauer, K.D., Stafford, K.B., DeSisto, L.A., & deCani, J.S. (2005). Informational text comprehension in the primary grade classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(4), 538-550. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.97.4.538

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Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades: "We Can Do It, Too!"

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Originally designed with seventh grade students, Reciprocal Teaching is a research-based strategy that teaches students to work in small groups to coordinate the use of four comprehension strategies: prediction, clarification, summarization, and student-generated questions. This article illustrates how to implement Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades (RTPG).

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Hands-On Reciprocal Teaching: A Comprehension Technique

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Hands-On Reciprocal Teaching: A Comprehension Technique

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Seven Strategies to Teach Text Comprehension

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Seven Strategies to Teach Text Comprehension

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Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

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Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. These seven strategies have research-based evidence for improving text comprehension.

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Evidence for text structure instruction to improve reading comprehension

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Evidence for text structure instruction to improve reading comprehension

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Blast from the Past: This entry was first posted on March 17, 2019 and was reposted on May 22, 2021. I'm surprised this entry hasn't drawn more attention. These days I'm often asked, "How do you teach reading comprehension?" or "Shouldn't we stop teaching reading comprehension and focus on building knowledge?" This topic, teaching text structure, should be a valuable response to those questions. I have added references and some links to additional practical supports for such teaching and have tacked on a new conclusion that provides 10 reasons that reading teachers should focus on text structure. Teacher question: I was wondering what the research says (or if you could point me in the right direction to find it) about explicit instruction for nonfiction text structure. Specifically, English Language Learners.
Shanahan response:

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I've been waiting for this question for almost three years. That's because there have been several fascinating studies on this topic.

This question focuses attention on an important current controversy: My colleagues Dan Willingham and E.D. Hirsch have made a strong case for focusing heavily on content to support reading comprehension-rather than teaching comprehension.

How much should we focus on reading comprehension instruction? Should we aim to increase kids' knowledge of the world alone and just assume they'll be able to apply that knowledge successfully to making sense of text? Are there any reading strategies or meta-knowledge (knowledge about reading or text) worth teaching?

Though you know I usually shy away from controversial positions (fake news?), this one might be worth a dip of my oar.

Educational standards these days heavily emphasize the reading of expository texts or informational texts. The National Assessment (NAEP), college entry exams (SAT, ACT), and all state accountability texts (PARCC, SBAC, and all of the other acronyms) include such passages on their tests, so kids who can't read such text are up a creek!

The idea that it might be beneficial to teach students how authors organize or structure their texts has long been with us... at least since the publication of The Organization of Prose and Its Effects on Memory by Bonnie Meyer (1975). That wonderful book explored why some ideas are more likely to be remembered than others and reported that text organization played an important role in that process.

That makes sense to me. Many years ago, I myself did a study in which I rearranged a text's sentence sequence randomly. Surprise! Readers weren't able to summarize it. The arrangement and linking of ideas make a big difference in understanding and recall.

The question is can you teach students to recognize and use text organization to improve reading comprehension?

In 2016 and 2017, two major meta-analyses of such studies were reported (Hebert, et al., 2016; Pyle, et al.,). They differed a bit in grade levels (the latter including K-1), and methodology, but overall, they had similar conclusions. Teaching text structure improved expository reading comprehension.

Teaching kids to recognize how authors have organized a text and to use this information to guide one's thinking about the text has proven to be a powerful tool even with younger kids. Recognizing whether an author is describing, comparing, linking causes and effects or problems and solutions, or sequencing steps or events is worthwhile. It reveals the author's purpose and allows one to focus attention better on the key information-the content.

Joanna Williams and her colleagues in a series of well-designed studies found that it was possible to teach second-graders to identify and use the "compare-contrast" structure and that students could recognize and that it improved their comprehension of such texts. The kids could successfully generalize this ability to comparison texts covering new content, but it didn't help them with texts with different organizations.

Interestingly, Williams and company monitored the kids learning of content across this study and found this instruction detracted in no way from their learning new content information.

I suspect the reason for this is that thinking about text organization requires that you think about content in specific ways. For instance, when one reads science, the causal explanations tend be particularly important. A reading approach that encourages the reader to try to connect causes and effects is going to focus attention heavily on this key content and how the ideas are related. The same would be true for texts that explore problems and solutions, or comparisons.

The meta-analyses mentioned earlier found that it was effective to teach kids about multiple text structures and that text structure instruction was particularly potent when writing was included in the instruction (and such writing would require students to focus on content in a way that is particularly powerful in increasing content knowledge). Another important feature of such teaching was the use of graphic organizers to illustrate the structures and to guide students to make use of these structures during reading.

And, it helps if this instruction teaches students to watch for "clue words" (e.g., moreover, however, first, second, consequently, because, for this, as a result, likewise, initially). Such words are often stressed these days since they are such a key part of academic language, but text organization instruction requires one to not just know their meanings, but to actively use these words to make sense of an author's message.

Given all of that, I would definitely devote some instructional time to teaching students to use text organization, both in their reading and writing. This work would entail reading science and social studies content, and I would hold the students accountable both for understanding these major text organization schemes and for the content they were reading about, analyzing, and writing about.

The question also asked about teaching of text structure to English Language Learners. Usually, I'm stuck saying that a particular approach has been found to be effective, but there are not studies of this with second-language learners. That is not the case here. In fact, research shows this approach to be effective not just with native speakers, but with ELLs (Wijekumar, et al., 2018).
http://literacy.io/ https://www.readingrockets.org/article/implementing-text-structure-strategy-your-classroom https://iowareadingresearch.org/blog/text-structure-mapping https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psyched/201703/teaching-text-structure-improves-reading-comprehension
For more information on research in this area, I'd recommend that you go to these sites:

As for the controversy between content and reading comprehension strategies: Should we teach content or strategies? The answer definitely is, "Yes."

And here are 10 reasons why:

1. Research has consistently supported the idea of providing this kind of teaching.

2. This is true even with the most rigorous research designs.

3. The effects sizes for these studies have ranged from moderate to high, meaning there is a good learning payoff from such teaching.

4. Research has been consistent on this for nearly 50 years -- so the value of this kind of teaching is not just a fad.

5. Text structure instruction works across a wide range of grade levels, so whether you teach kindergarten, high school, or any of the grades in between there is good reason to believe this would be beneficial.

6. Text structure instruction has been found to be beneficial with English Learners.

7. Text structure instruction works with students with learning disabilities, too.

8. Given the emphasis on complex text, text structure instruction can be a valuable tool for helping kids to demystify a challenging text.

9. I suspect that text structure is a bit like vocabulary; that is, it is at that Nexus that connects language learning and content knowledge.
References
10. There are are lot of great resources available for teaching text structure.

Bogaerds-Hazenberg, S.T.M., Evers-Vermeul, J., & van den Bergh, H. (2020). A meta-analysis on the effects of text structure instruction on reading comprehension in the upper elementary grades. Reading Research Quarterly, 1- 28. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.311

Hall-Mills, S. S., & Marante, L. M. (2020). Explicit text structure instruction supports expository text comprehension for adolescents with learning disabilities: A systematic review. Learning Disability Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731948720906490

Hebert, M. Bohaty, J.J., Nelson, J.R., & Brown, J. (2016). The effects of text structure instruction on expository reading comprehension: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(5), 609-629.

Meyer, B.J.F., & Ray, M.N. (2011). Structure strategy interventions: Increasing reading comprehension of expository text. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 4(1), 127-152.

Pyle, N., Vasquez, A., Lignugaris/Kraft, B., Gillam, S., Reutzel, D., Olszewski, A., . . . Pyle, D. (2017). Effects of expository text structure interventions on comprehension: A meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 52(4), 469-501.

Roehling, J.V., Hebert, M., Nelson, J.R., & Boharty, J.J. (2017). Text structure strategies for improving expository reading comprehension. Reading Teacher, 71(1), 71-82.

Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through third grade: A practice guide. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Wijekumar, K. (K.), Meyer, B. J. F., & Lei, P. (2017). Web-based text structure strategy instruction improves seventh graders' content area reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(6), 741-760.

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P., Hernandez, A.C., & August, D.L. (2018). Improving content area reading comprehension of Spanish speaking English Learners in grades 4 and 5 using web-based text structure instruction. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 31(9), 1969-1996.

Williams, J.P., Kao, J.C., Pao, L.S., Ordynans, J.G., Atkins, J.G., Cheng, R., & DeBonis, D . (2016). Close analysis of texts with structure (CATS): An intervention to teach reading comprehension to at-risk second-graders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 198, 1061-1077.

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Does text structure instruction improve reading comprehension?

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This blog entry explores the importance and value of teaching students to identify the way that an author has organized the information in a text. Text structure helps readers to understand and remember the information in a text.

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Steps for Teaching Expository Text Structure

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Steps for Teaching Expository Text Structure

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How to Teach Expository Text Structure to Facilitate Reading Comprehension

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Expository text can be challenging to young readers because of the unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary it presents. Discover ways to help your students analyze expository text structures and pull apart the text to uncover the main idea and supporting details.

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Iowa Reading Research Center - The University of Iowa

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Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series that will describe instructional approaches for improving students' reading comprehension of informational texts.
As students progress from the primary to secondary grades, they are asked to read increasing amounts of informational texts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010b). In fact, by the time students reach middle school, the majority of reading assignments are informational texts, as students must acquire critical content knowledge by reading across the curriculum (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a). However, many students may struggle to comprehend informational texts due to high vocabulary and content demands (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007; Denton et al., 2015), as well as unfamiliar structures (Sáenz & Fuchs, 2002).

Text structure instruction has been found to be effective at improving reading comprehension of informational texts, including for students with or at risk for learning disabilities (Gajria, Jitendra, Sood, & Sacks, 2007), and those with emotional or behavioral difficulties (Burke, Boon, Hatton, & Bowman-Perrott, 2015). Text structure is the way an author organizes information in order to achieve a purpose. By explicitly teaching students the characteristics of specific text structures and providing them with targeted practice opportunities, students' comprehension of texts encountered across the curriculum may improve (Williams et al., 2016). Text structure instruction equips students with a cognitive tool to organize the information and complex vocabulary contained in content area texts (Pyle et al., 2017) and may increase students' attention to the features of less familiar text structures (Hebert, Bohaty, Nelson, & Brown, 2016).

Several attributes of text structure instruction have been found to be especially influential in improving reading comprehension. First, it is important for students to learn a range of text structures (e.g., problem-solution, cause-effect, compare-contrast), rather than focusing on a singular structure type (Hebert et al., 2016). Second, teachers should explicitly teach new structures using exemplar texts that clearly contain textual elements of each structure (Jones, Clark, & Reutzel, 2016) and using graphic organizers that scaffold students' organization of these elements (Pyle et al., 2017). Finally, the instructional sequence should include a written student product (Hebert et al., 2016), particularly when implementing this type of instruction with secondary students.

One effective instructional strategy that can be used to introduce and practice new informational text structures is text mapping (Burke et al., 2015; Stagliano & Boon, 2009). Text maps are graphic organizers in which students can display and organize important textual features. Each type of text structure map should be explicitly introduced and practiced until students demonstrate they can independently produce the text map (Stone, Boone, Fore, & Spencer, 2008). Importantly, independent application of the text mapping strategy may increase reading comprehension by improving students' ability to self-monitor comprehension and make inferences (Garwood, Ciullo, & Brunsting, 2017).

Example Text Structure Mapping Lesson Outline

The following is a text structure mapping lesson outline in which students learn to organize a problem-solution text. A scripted think aloud for the modeling portion of the lesson can be found in the Supplemental Materials for Teachers section below, along with blank versions of the text structure map and rubric mentioned in this example. The completed version of the text structure map is provided in this post. This example lesson would be appropriate for seventh- or eighth-grade students. However, this strategy can be used with students of any age who are able to read connected text.

Introduction

Begin by explaining to students that authors choose certain text structures to organize their ideas and accomplish their purpose for writing the passage. Readers who can identify the structure will better understand the text, remember the important information, and be able to use the structure to write their own texts. Review any previously taught text structures before introducing the new structure: problem-solution. Provide several examples of where students may encounter this type of text in school and life such as when reading about environmental disasters, negotiations between people or countries in a conflict, or ways a community might improve its citizens' quality of life. Tell students the objective of the lesson is to analyze the information in a text to understand the author's use of a problem-solution structure.

Choose a short informational text that contains clear examples of each section of the text map. Remind students that good readers read a text one time for understanding before engaging in a second reading for a more specific purpose, including analyzing the text structure. Expressively read the text aloud to students, briefly stopping to discuss any unknown vocabulary words.

Modeling

Tell students that the purpose of a problem-solution text is for the author to inform the reader about a problem and present solutions to the problem. While referring to the template for the text structure map, explain that each section contains a feature of the text structure that helps the author achieve that purpose. Next, introduce each section of the text map. Explain to students that you will be thinking aloud to demonstrate how you identify and analyze the problem and solution, as well as identify relevant textual details in which the author develops the problem and establishes useful solutions (see "Example Scripted Think Aloud for Text Structure Mapping Instruction" for the modeling portion of the lesson in the Supplemental Materials for Teachers). Emphasize that students will eventually use this same type of analysis independently to map the important elements of a problem-solution text. Therefore, it is essential that they pay close attention to how you think about and identify these structural elements.

Begin by defining the problem in an informational text as "something that the author describes as going wrong, or a type of conflict." Think aloud about how you will define the problem in this specific text. Provide a non-example, in which you offer one way to describe the problem, but explain why you will choose to frame this problem differently (see "Example Scripted Think Aloud for Text Structure Mapping Instruction" in the Supplemental Materials for Teachers section below for examples of non-examples). Point out to students the section of text on which you are basing your identification of the problem, and annotate the text by highlighting or underlining relevant sections. Explain that the problem is one of the central ideas in the passage. Emphasize that you will concisely capture the problem in one or two brief sentences, and model recording the problem in this section of the text structure map.

Next, tell the students that when analyzing a problem-solution text, it is critical to understand the significance of the problem in order to later identify possible solutions. Explain that the significance of the problem means why it is important or harmful, or, in other words, the reason the reader should care about the problem. Describe the significance of the problem in the exemplar passage, and underline or highlight the sections of text in which the author outlines the significance. Reiterate that the significance of the problem highlights the need to fix the problem and sets the stage for the author to present possible solutions. In addition, connect the problem's significance with the reader's feelings about the problem. For example, the reader may feel worried, concerned, or scared. Record the significance of the problem on the text structure map.

Finally, tell students that the next step in thinking about problem-solution texts is determining possible solutions. Define solutions as "things the author suggests will fix or help the problem." Explain that in a problem-solution text it is important to not only identify possible solutions, but also understand their rationale, or the reasons the author gives for each solution. For the rationale, allow the reader to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions. Identify a non-example of a solution in the exemplar text, and explain why you will not record that particular solution in the text structure map. Identify one to two possible solutions the author presents, and explain your reasoning for selecting these solutions to record in the text map. Highlight or underline the sections of text in which you found the solutions. Connect each solution to the significance of the problem, and analyze the rationale presented. Tell students that the rationale should describe why each solution will address the problem and its significance. Locate the rationale in the exemplar passage by highlighting or underlining relevant sentences, and record the rationale for each solution on the text structure map.

Guided Practice

Provide students with a new, short informational text that is organized uniformly by a problem-solution structure. Preview the text by talking with students about any headings or graphics and clarifying any unknown vocabulary words. Then, ask pairs or small groups of students to read the text together one time for understanding. Monitor to ensure students read the entire text before directing them to return to the text to analyze the text structure, using the problem-solution text map. As students collaborate with their peers to complete the maps, redirect any misunderstandings. Probe students' analyses of the problem-solution structure by asking questions about the importance of particular sections of the map or how specific sentences or paragraphs contribute to the overall text structure.

Students may require guided practice with several different passages before they are ready to map problem-solution texts independently. It is essential to address any student misunderstandings or difficulties with particular sections or concepts by explicitly re-teaching parts of the text map. For example, students may require additional instruction on identifying the author's rationale for suggested solutions or choosing the most convincing evidence that demonstrates the harmfulness of the problem. These targeted re-teaches may include additional modeling and guided student discussions to ensure understanding of the section.

Independent Practice

Assign a short informational text for students to analyze independently, using the problem-solution text map. Again, it is critical that the chosen text exemplifies a clear problem-solution structure and contains all structural elements included in the map. Use the Problem-Solution Text Structure Rubric (see Supplemental Materials for Teachers) to provide students with targeted feedback regarding the accuracy and completion of their text maps. Direct students to revise inaccurate or incomplete sections based on your feedback. Finally, ask students to reflect on the use of text mapping to support their comprehension of problem-solution texts and how they might apply this new skill in the future.

Example of a Completed Text Structure Map

The following is an example of a completed text structure map based on a passage about a mine collapse that trapped miners in Chile.

Problem: (Be brief and use your own words!)

The mine collapsed, trapping 33 Chilean gold and copper miners 2,300 feet underground

Significance of the problem: (Why is the problem important? How is it causing harm? In other words, why do we care about the problem?)

The men could die of thirst, starvation, or lack of oxygen.

The mine could collapse further

Solution(s) for the problem: (How can this problem be fixed or helped?)

Rationale for solutions: (How does the solution work? Why will it be effective?)

1. The miners will receive food, water, medicine, and oxygen. This will help the miners stay healthy until they can be rescued. Drill very small holes and use them to deliver supplies.

2. Slowly drill a rescue tunnel. Then, remove each man using a special capsule.
The tunnel will be the right size for the rescue but not so big or drilled so quickly that the mine will collapse further. The capsule will protect the men as they leave the mine.

The goal of text structure instruction is for students to comprehend new, authentic texts encountered across the curriculum. However, explicit instruction of specific text structure types, such as problem-solution, is an important first step to understanding passages that contain a range of organizational features. Text structure mapping provides teachers with a dynamic instructional tool that can be used to help students learn cognitive frameworks for organizing such features (Pyle et al., 2017) and ultimately improve comprehension of content-rich informational texts (Burke et al., 2015).

Supplemental Materials for Teachers
Example Scripted Think Aloud for Text Structure Mapping Instruction
A scripted representation of an educator modeling text structure mapping for a problem-solution text.
Problem-Solution Text Structure Map
A graphic organizer to help students display and organize important features from a text about a problem and solution.
Problem-Solution Text Map Rubric
Guidelines for providing students with targeted feedback regarding the accuracy and completion of their text maps.

References

Burke, M. D., Boon, R. T., Hatton, H., & Bowman-Perrott, L. (2015). Reading interventions for middle and secondary students with emotional and behavioral disorders: A quantitative review of single-case studies. Behavior Modification, 39, 43-68. doi:10.1177/0145445514547958

Cromley, J. G., & Azevedo, R. (2007). Testing and refining the direct and inferential mediation model of reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 311-325. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.99.2.311

Denton, C. A., Enos, M., York, M. J., Francis, D. J., Barnes, M. A., Kulesz, P. A., ... Carter, S. (2015). Text-processing differences in adolescent adequate and poor comprehenders reading accessible and challenging narrative and informational text. Reading Research Quarterly, 50, 393-416. doi:10.1002/rrq.105

Gajria, M., Jitendra, A. K., Sood, S., & Sacks, G. (2007). Improving comprehension of expository text in students with LD: A research synthesis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 210-225. doi:10.1177/00222194070400030301

Garwood, J.D., Ciullo, S., & Brunsting, N. (2017). Supporting students with emotional and behavioral disorders' comprehension and reading fluency. Teaching Exceptional Children, 49(6), 391-401.

Hebert, M., Bohaty, J. J., Nelson, J. R., & Brown, J. (2016). The effects of text structure instruction on expository reading comprehension: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108, 609. doi:10.1037/edu0000082

Jones, C. D., Clark, S. K., & Reutzel, D. R. (2016). Teaching text structure: Examining the affordances of children's informational texts. The Elementary School Journal, 117, 143-169. doi:10.1086/687812

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010a). English language arts standards - introduction - Key design consideration. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/key-design-consideration/

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010b). Key shifts in English language arts. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts/

Pyle, N., Vasquez, A. C., Lignugaris/Kraft, B., Gillam, S. L., Reutzel, D. R., Olszewski, A.,... Pyle, D. (2017). Effects of expository text structure interventions on comprehension: A meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 52, 469-501. doi:10.1002/rrq.179

Sáenz, L. M., & Fuchs, L. S. (2002). Examining the reading difficulty of secondary students with learning disabilities: Expository versus narrative text. Remedial and Special Education, 23, 31-41. doi:10.1177/074193250202300105

Stagliano, C., & Boon, R. T. (2009). The effects of a story-mapping procedure to improve the comprehension skills of expository text passages for elementary students with learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 7, 35-58.

Stone, R. H., Boon, R. T., Fore, C., III, Bender, W. N., & Spencer, V. G. (2008). Use of text maps to improve the reading comprehension skills among students in high school with emotional and behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 33, 87-98.

Williams, J. P., Kao, J. C., Pao, L. S., Ordynans, J. G., Atkins, J. G., Cheng, R., & DeBonis, D. (2016). Close analysis of texts with structure (CATS): An intervention to teach reading comprehension to at-risk second graders. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108, 1061-1077. doi:10.1037/edu0000117

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Text Structure Mapping: A Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension of Informational Texts

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An overview of text structures, why they matter for students' comprehension of informational text, and a deeper look at text structure mapping as an instructional tool.

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Consistent Routines For Increased Student Learning

from The Keys to Literacy: The Key Comprehension Routine: Grades 4-12

Why Use Only One Type of Graphic Organizer?

There are a plethora of graphic organizers that can be used to support comprehension. However, the availability of so many different types of graphic organizers often results in confusion about when and how to use them. As they move from class to class and encounter teachers using different kinds of graphic organizers, students may become overwhelmed and focus more on mastering the use of each new template rather than using the graphic organizer to learn information.

Using Top Down Topic Webs to Support Comprehension

How can teachers and students use top down topic webs as a comprehension strategy?

Comprehension strategies are often grouped into before, during, and after strategies. That is, before, during, and after students learn from anything that is read, said, or done.

How To Use A Top Down Topic Web

Components of a Top Down Topic Web

Using Shapes

The shape for each topic level should be the same. Changes in shape indicate a super-topic or a sub-ordinate topic relationship. It doesn't matter which shapes are used, so long as there is a change that represents the difference at each level in the hierarchy of the ideas.

Using Color

Color can be used in two ways: One way is to identify all items under a specific super-topic by making them the same color; the other is to make all the items at the same level in the hierarchy the same color. Review the examples below to see how shape or color can visually emphasize the organization of a topic web.

Creating a Sub-Web

You may find it helpful to take a section of a topic web and develop it into a separate, more detailed sub-web. For instance: A sub-web is a useful alternative if you and/or your students want to add another level of sub-topics to a web but find that the web is too crowded.

Sub-webs can be especially helpful where a topic web represents a large amount of content, such as the content for a month-long unit of study or the information in a lengthy reading assignment. A series of sub-webs can be developed for each lesson within the unit of study or each section of the reading.

Refer to the science examples below. The first is from a science chapter about organic compounds, and its first two segments have been developed into two more detailed sub-webs, show below. The second topic web is from a unit about volcanoes and earthquakes; each sub-topic has been further developed into its own sub-web.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

Who Creates the Topic Web?

I Do It

Using think aloud, the teacher models the generation of a topic web.

The teacher provides some completed topic webs and models the use of a topic web (again, using think aloud):

as a before comprehension strategy to see the big picture and activate background knowledge

as a during strategy to make connections as the student progresses through a series of topics

as an after strategy to organize and review topics

We Do It

The teacher provides a partially completed topic web for students to complete.

Students work collaboratively to complete or generate a topic web.

You Do It

Students generate their own topic webs independently.

Classroom-Size Topic Webs

Top-down topic webs can support content classroom units of study. One way to use them in this way is to create a large poster-size or bulletin board topic web that presents the major topics for a unit of study. Teachers and students can check off topics as they are covered or add to the web as the unit of study progresses.

Partially Complete Topic Webs

Another way to support students as they learn to generate their own topic webs is to provide them with partially completed examples.

Jaye Parks

Blended Learning Instructional Facilitator

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Top Down Topic Webs - Consistent Routines For Increased Student Learning by Jaye Parks

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Keys to Literacy: Top Down Topic Web Instructional Routine

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Keys to Literacy: Top Down Topic Web Instructional Routine

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WWC Summary of Evidence for this Intervention

Reciprocal teaching is an interactive instructional practice that aims to improve students' reading comprehension by teaching strategies to obtain meaning from a text. The teacher and students take turns leading a dialogue regarding segments of the text. Students discuss with their teacher how to apply four comprehension strategies-generating questions, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting-to passages of text. During the early stages of reciprocal teaching, the teacher assumes primary responsibility for modeling how to use these strategies. As students become more familiar with the strategies, there is a gradual shift toward student responsibility for talking through the application of the strategies to the text.

A group of closely related outcomes.

A summary of the effectiveness of an intervention in an outcome domain, based on the quality of research, the statistical significance of findings, the magnitude of findings, and the consistency of findings across studies.

For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for rating of effectiveness.

The number of studies that met WWC design standards and provide evidence of effectiveness. Selecting an item below will display all studies that met WWC design studies in the domain. Selecting a study citation will take you to more information on that study and its findings.

For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for study rating.

Grades of the students examined in the studies that met WWC design standards, which may not reflect the full range of grades for which the intervention may be used.

The number of students included in the studies that met WWC design standards.

The sample size for the studies that met WWC design standards.

An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.

For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.

The indicator represents the highest level of similarity found between your students and each of the high-quality studies of the intervention. Three filled in ovals indicates that at least one study that met standards was conducted on students very similar to yours. Clicking on the indicator for a study will provide information on the similarity for each of the characteristics you selected.

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As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

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Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L., & Burish, P. (2000). Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies: An Evidence-Based Practice to Promote Reading Achievement. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 15(2), 85-91.

Fuchs, L., Fuchs, D., & Kazdan, S. (1999). Effects of peer-assisted learning strategies on high school students with serious reading problems. Remedial and Special Education, 20(5), 309-318.

Saenz, L., Fuchs, L., & Fuchs, D. (2005) Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies for English Language Learners with Learning Disabilities. Exceptional Children, (71).

Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. (n.d.). Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies. Retrieved 2008, January 21, from http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/

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Paragraph shrinking is an activity developed as part of the Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS). The paragraph shrinking strategy allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main points of each paragraph. Students provide each other with feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.

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Have you ever asked your students to read a text, only to find that their understanding of the main idea was completely wrong? Or have you seen students focus on unimportant details and miss the "big picture"? If so, you know that identifying the main idea of a text can be a challenge for many students.

Paragraph shrinking is a routine students can use to practice finding the main idea by summarizing a text. You can use paragraph shrinking with students at any reading level and with any text.

Using this routine, students work with a peer or an adult partner to:

Read or listen to the text. For instance, ask students to read the beginning of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Say or write down the name of the who or what (the main person, animal, or thing) of the text. In this case, the who is Goldilocks.

Tell or write the most important information about the who or what, such as an action or a feeling. For example, the most important thing is that Goldilocks found bowls of porridge, tried them all, and ate the one that was not too hot or too cold.

Say or write the main idea of the text in 10 words or fewer. For instance, "Goldilocks tried all the porridge until one was just right."

Receive feedback from a partner along the way. For example, if the reader says that the house is the who or what of the story, the partner might say, "I thought it was Goldilocks. Let's go back and look at the text."

Watch: See paragraph shrinking in action

Watch this video to see how peers work together to use the paragraph shrinking strategy.

Read: How to use this strategy

Grades K-12 (Common Core ELA Literacy CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas)

Pair students. Pair up students who have different reading abilities. If a student will be working with an adult partner, determine that ahead of time as well. Keep students in the same pairs for several lessons so they can build their skills together. You'll also want to change partners periodically based on skill and specific needs. (See "How to teach" below for tips on how to do partner work during times of social distancing.)

1. Model the strategy. With a co-teacher, paraprofessional, or volunteer student, model how to do the paragraph shrinking steps. If this is the first time you're showing the strategy, make sure your model is explicit. Also, be sure to:

Explain the benefits of the strategy and expectations for partner behavior.

Remind students that making mistakes is part of the learning process. Model having difficulty as the reader, so that your coach can prompt you to look at the text again or to fix a mistake.

Provide sentence starters to help students who may need help answering or coaching, such as "The 'who' of this story is ___."

2. Match up partners. Use your partner list to put students into pairs. Make sure the partners know their roles - either coach or reader - for the first round. The stronger reader should be the coach first. (If an adult will work with an individual student, the adult is the coach for the first round.) Give all students this card as a reminder of the steps.

Do the partner work in shifts or meet with students one-on-one to reduce the noise.

If you have access to devices, students can read their own copies of the text silently and then use a shared document to do the paragraph shrinking.

If you have access to devices and headphones, students can use a video call platform for the entire activity. You can also do this in shifts to reduce the noise.

Teaching tip: For many students, the most challenging part of this routine is giving feedback. It can take time for students to learn how to offer real, substantive feedback. Specifically, students with lower reading skills may struggle with providing the correct feedback. Or they may be hesitant to do so. Build up these feedback skills by modeling different types of feedback each time you model the routine. Talk about what makes the feedback most useful. During partner work, provide targeted support for students who need help giving feedback.

Understand: Why this strategy works

Research shows that all students can benefit - both socially and academically - from peer-assisted learning strategies like paragraph shrinking. Working with peers is especially beneficial for English language learners because they may find peers more accessible and easier to understand than teachers.

Paragraph shrinking helps all students by making the process of summarizing explicit. It gives students an easy-to-learn set of steps to find the main idea. And when students can find the main idea, they build meaning about what they've read.

Because the routine uses short sections of text, it's especially beneficial for students who have trouble with working memory. These students often struggle with seeing the connections from one idea to the next. They may lose track of information presented earlier. Paragraph shrinking gives them a way to review a short section, retain it in their memory, and then move on to the next section.

In general, students who struggle with reading often focus on irrelevant information, which makes it difficult to find the main idea. This is especially true of students who have trouble with focus. Each time students do paragraph shrinking, they practice weeding out information. Other students who may not have trouble weeding out unimportant details will enjoy the challenge of trying to fit as much information as possible into 10 words.

Teaching tip: If students continue to struggle with focusing on irrelevant information during paragraph shrinking, you can break down the text into even smaller sections. Or you can have an adult partner work with students to go sentence-by-sentence to find the right who or what and details along the way.

Paragraph shrinking gives families (including parents, caregivers, and even older siblings) a simple, easy-to-follow strategy for checking that kids understand what they're reading.

Explain the strategy to families using the four simple steps. (You might even send home the same reference card you've given to students.) Family members and their kids can take turns as coach and reader. By following this strategy, families will extend and validate what their child is learning in the classroom.

Research behind this strategy

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Paragraph shrinking: An evidence-based literacy strategy

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Learn how to help students summarize what they read with paragraph shrinking, an evidence-based reading comprehension strategy.

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National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)

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This handout was developed in tandem with Considerations for Reading Intervention Upon the Return to School as part of NASP's return to school academic guidance series. This series and the related webinars can be accessed on the NASP website at https://www.nasponline.org/covid-19-webinar-series.

Burns et al. (2015) and Preast et al. (2020) modified the Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS; Fuchs et al., 2001) program to implement partner reading and paragraph shrinking as class-wide interventions and demonstrated the immediate positive effects. Partner reading and paragraph shrinking involve the following steps (Burns et al., 2015; Fuchs et al., 2001).

1. Organize each classroom in dyads by dividing the class into two groups-higher readers and lower readers. Match the top reader in the lower half with the top reader in the upper half, the second highest reader in the upper half with the second highest reader in the lower half, on down until the lowest reader in the class is matched with the lowest reader of the higher group.

2. Each dyad is given a folder with their team name on it (the students can make up the name if desired). On the front of the folder, in addition to the team name, write Student 1 and Student 2. Student 1 is the better reader of the dyad and Student 2 is the weaker reader. Inside the folder are a visual depicter of an error correction technique, the basic rules (e.g., talk only about reading, keep your voices low, help your partner, and do your best), and several passages written at Reader 2's instructional level. We often use https://www.readworks.org/, which is a free resource, to find passages that approximate the Lexile score that represents Reader 2's instructional level.

3. The partner dyads meet for 20 minutes each day for 2 weeks in elementary schools and 3 weeks in middle schools.

4. In the first session the teacher discusses the rules and then explains that, during the sessions, Reader 1's job is to go pick up the folder while Reader 2 finds a place to work. The students should practice this procedure until they can do so quickly and quietly. The students then work in pairs to read text aloud.

1. The partner reading involves having each student read the same passage out loud for 5 minutes each. Reader 1 always reads first. Remember that the passages are written at Reader 2's instructional level and Reader 1 is the stronger reader. Thus, Reader 1 should be able to read the passages with little difficulty. Reader 2 follows along while Reader 1 reads for 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes, the teacher announces that it is time to switch and Reader 2 then reads the exact same passage for 5 minutes while Reader 1 follows along.

2. If a student cannot read a word, the other student provides error correction by saying, "That word is . What word? Yes, that word is . Now go back and read that sentence again."

5. On the second day, the teacher has the students pick up their folders and engage in partner reading, but also introduces paragraph shrinking.

1. Paragraph shrinking involves having each student read aloud for 5 minutes. After reading each paragraph, the student stops and restates the most important who or what in the paragraph, what happened to the most important who or what, and then describe both of these in 10 words or less (e.g., Thomas Edison was the most important who or what. The most important thing that happened to Thomas Edison was that he was raised on a farm, but didn't like living on a farm because he liked working with machines. In 10 words or less, "Thomas Edison didn't like farming; he liked working with machines.")

2. After reading for 5 minutes, Reader 1 stops and Reader 2 picks up where Reader 1 left off to read novel text and paragraph shrinks after every paragraph for 5 minutes.

6. The intervention in days 2 through 10 (15 at middle school) is fully up and running (Reader 1 reads aloud for 5 minutes while Reader 2 follows along, Reader 2 reads the exact same text again for 5 minutes while Reader 1 follows along, Reader 1 reads new text aloud for 5 minutes and paragraph shrinks after each paragraph, and Reader 2 reads new text aloud for 5 minutes and paragraph shrinks after each paragraph).

Burns et al. (2015) and Preast et al. (2020) described positive results of partner reading and paragraph shrinking after just 10 school days. The median curriculum-based measurement score for two third-grade classrooms went from 81 and 87 words read correctly per minute (WCM; the benchmark criterion was 91) to 104 and 115 WCM, respectively. The number of students who needed support went from 12 (out of 23) and 11 (out of 18) to 5 in each classroom.

References

Burns, M. K., Karich, A. C., Maki, K. E., Anderson, A., Pulles, S. M., Ittner, A., ... Helman, L. (2014). Identifying classwide problems in reading with screening data. Journal of Evidence-Based Practices for Schools, 14, 186-204.

Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Otaiba, S. A., Thompson, A., Yen, L., Mcmaster, K. N., ... Yang, N. J. (2001). K-PALS helping kindergartners with reading readiness: Teachers and researchers in partnerships. Teaching Exceptional Children, 33(4), 76-80.

Preast, J. L., Burns, M. K., Brann, K. L., Taylor, C. N., & Aguilar, L. (2019, March). Class-wide partner reading intervention for science comprehension. School Psychology Forum, 13(1), 29-40.
Contributor: Matthew K. Burns
© 2020, National Association of School Psychologists, 4340 East West Highway, Suite 402, Bethesda, MD 20814, 301-657-0270, www.nasponline.org

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Reading Intervention Protocol: Partner Reading and Paragraph Shrinking

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This handout was developed in tandem with Considerations for Reading Intervention Upon the Return to School as part of NASP's return to school academic guidance series.

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A "Top-Down Web" is a graphic organizer that shows the hierarchy of main ideas. Top-Down Webs can be used for a variety of purposes in a variety of subjects. For example:

Use one to extract information out of a text.

Use one to show steps in a process.

Use one to organize thoughts and ideas before writing.

Use one to show how parts relate to a whole.

​Here is a sample of a completed Top-Down Web:

It is important to note that there are NO sentences on a Top-Down Web, just words or phrases. Think of a Top-Down Web as external memory, a place outside of your brain to hold ideas until you are ready to use them.
Below is a blank Top-Down Web and a downloadable version.

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A "Top-Down Web" is a graphic organizer that shows the hierarchy of main ideas. Top-Down Webs can be used for a variety of purposes in a variety of subjects. For example: Use one to...

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NASBE - National Association of State Boards of Education

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A common base of content knowledge and coherent, comprehensive, and sequential curricula to deliver it are prerequisites for reading comprehension. Most students are not getting what they need.

Image credit: iStock

"[R]eading comprehension depends heavily on knowledge. By failing to provide a solid grounding in basic subjects, we inadvertently hobble children's ability in reading comprehension. As I put it elsewhere, teaching content is teaching reading."[1] - Dan Willingham

The surge of support for the science of reading is cause for great cheer. According to the Albert Shanker Institute, 45 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws since 2019 to shift reading instruction based on what research says works.[2] These laws often explicitly call for teaching phonics, phonemic awareness, and other skills that enable decoding of words. Implemented well, these laws will produce many more third graders who are strong decoders. But reading comprehension also requires students to have background knowledge-a rich store of content knowledge in history, geography, social studies, science, and the arts related to the topics students are reading about. And while a few of these states' laws (and only a few) mention background knowledge, no state gives it more than a passing reference.

The future adults sitting in classrooms today will not fully comprehend future newspapers (or whatever replaces them) unless they are grounded in this relevant content knowledge. They also will not understand middle school science textbooks if they have not already soaked up at least the basics of adaptation, gravity, and sound waves. They will not understand their high school and college history texts without a store of knowledge on such topics as the Civil War, civil rights, and geography.

The future adults sitting in classrooms today will not fully comprehend future newspapers unless they are grounded in this relevant content knowledge.

Readers need this background knowledge to make sense of what they read. Take for example, this sentence from a recent Washington Post article on the war in Ukraine:

He drew a comparison to World War I, explaining how strategists a century earlier had predicted a swift end to the bloodshed, only for it to become an unwinnable standoff that killed millions and set the stage for World War II.

As is often said, history rhymes. Echoes from the past often reverberate in current public policy debates. Without knowing history, a reader cannot make much sense of this sentence. She may have excellent decoding skills and even be pretty good at finding the main idea, summarizing, and considering evidence for claims. But only the reader who is familiar with the World Wars will gain insight-drawing a parallel to the current situation while perhaps also learning that some predicted World War I would be short.

Students need a remarkable breadth of word and world knowledge if they are to succeed in high school, go on to college, and read newspapers and popular books. Most will only acquire that knowledge if their schools have an intentional, effective plan to impart it, allowing them to learn it incrementally and efficiently starting in the earliest grades.

Students need a remarkable breadth of word and world knowledge if they are to succeed in high school, go on to college, and read newspapers and popular books.

But American schools do not do a good job of building content knowledge. They barely teach either social studies or science in elementary school-on average just 16 minutes a day for social studies and 18 for science in K-3, according to a 2018 survey.[3] In upper elementary, the time for social studies grows by just 5 minutes; in science, it grows to 27 minutes. The lion's share of time goes instead to the English language arts (ELA) block, which has grown in recent years-ironically, to strengthen reading achievement.

Yet the most important tool to build reading comprehension is a curriculum that charts a path-starting in the earliest grades-by which schools can intentionally build the content knowledge that constitutes background knowledge. That knowledge-building curriculum is essentially absent from American schooling.

Compounding Power of Content Knowledge

The now iconic "baseball study," published in 1988, underscores just how much background knowledge matters to comprehension. Based on a reading comprehension test, researchers Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie identified students as strong or weak readers and as having either high or low baseball knowledge. The students were given a text that described half an inning of baseball. Recht and Leslie then gave students a replica of a baseball field and asked them to depict what had happened during the half inning and scored them both quantitatively and qualitatively. Notably, the students with weak reading skills but strong baseball knowledge scored higher (27.5 and 19.4) than the strong readers with low baseball knowledge (18.8 and 12.7). Topic knowledge trumped generic reading skill![4]

Knowledge compounds. Consider this sentence from the book Bats, by Gail Gibbons: "In places where it gets cold in the winter, some kinds of bats migrate to warmer climates; others use their roosts to hibernate until spring." As the Knowledge Matters Campaign explains, readers who already have basic knowledge of what it means to migrate and hibernate can make sense of this sentence while they also gain new understanding about the tremendous variation in bat species.[5] They would learn a bit more about bats, habitats, hibernation, climate, and the connections among them.

Gains in vocabulary also compound. Tom Landauer indicates that when students read about a topic with which they are already familiar, they learn four times more new vocabulary than students without that topic familiarity.[6]

In short, for the student with relatively more knowledge, every read-and especially every read with a familiar topic-begins a virtuous circle: Having more vocabulary and knowledge at the outset produces greater growth in vocabulary and topic knowledge. This virtuous circle enables students to read ever more advanced texts, which, in turn, produces yet greater learning. After a few well-sequenced texts, the student reading Bats not only knows more about bats but also about adjacent topics.

Having more vocabulary and knowledge at the outset produces greater growth in vocabulary and topic knowledge.

But for the student without adequate knowledge to begin with, the circle is downward and vicious. As E. D. Hirsch, a long-time explainer of the importance of background knowledge, wrote,

The less advantaged child, by contrast, suffers a double (or triple) loss. The exposition is puzzling from the start, because the child doesn't know enough of the words. He therefore fails to gain knowledge from the exposition and also fails to learn new word meanings from the context. And to intensify that double loss, the child loses even that which he hath-his interest, self-confidence, and motivation to learn.[7]

This fundamental reality about reading was dubbed the Matthew Effect in the 1980s, after the passage in Christian scripture that says he who "hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath."[8]

The knowledge gap that launches this downward spiral starts as a language gap before students even enter school.[9] In a path-breaking book, Betty Hart and Todd Risley established that by age 4, the average child in a professional family would have heard almost 45 million words; an average child in a working-class family, 26 million; and an average child in a low-income family, just 13 million. These differences snowball and help explain the large gaps in reading scores among high- and low-income students.[10]

The Role for Curriculum

To become more intentional and efficient about building students' broad, deep background knowledge, state leaders have to reckon with curriculum-long in the purview of local leaders and educators. Knowledge builds on knowledge, so lessons and units must be sequenced so they build on each other.

They also must build on the wider universe of cognitive science that explains how students learn. Learning flows from what they think about. So new learning is strengthened when students recall and think about it at key intervals. And before children can decode, they can build knowledge from regularly sequenced read-alouds.

Dan Willingham recalls a lesson that a teacher described to him, intended to teach about the Underground Railroad. In the lesson, students baked biscuits

because this was a staple for the enslaved people seeking escape. He asked what I thought about the assignment. I pointed out that his students probably thought for 40 seconds about the relationship of biscuits to the Underground Railroad and for 40 minutes about measuring flour, mixing shortening and so on. Whatever students think about is what they will remember.[11]

Willingham has written that "memory is the residue of thought." What you learn and remember "is not a product of what you want to remember or what you try to remember; it's a product of what you think about." These tidbits from cognitive science hint at how much more productive, focused, and long-lasting learning can be if the lessons, activities, and units students experience are constructed and sequenced across a year and across grades to optimize learning.

Constructing that sequence and all the lessons and units within it is beyond the scope and reach of any one teacher. No matter how expertly or frequently a teacher scours Pinterest or the many available curriculum and lesson-sharing and curriculum sites, it is not realistic to expect them to conceive, sequence, and prepare a daily stream of lessons that take optimal advantage of learning science. And unless all teachers are working off the same curriculum, they are not positioned to build on what students learned in prior years or prepare students with the prior knowledge needed for subsequent years.

The beauty of a curriculum is that it can provide all this. Whatever the subject matter, good curriculum is systematically and coherently sequenced and comprehensive, including the texts students will read, the learning activities, and whatever else is needed. Otherwise, its value would quickly diminish.

Whatever the subject matter, good curriculum is systematically and coherently sequenced and comprehensive.

In a different world, early elementary students would already spend a good deal of time learning history/social studies, science, and the arts. In this imaginary world-imaginary in the U.S., but the norm elsewhere-there would be a strong curriculum in each content area, starting from the earliest grade. Taught based on these curricula, many more students would be well prepared to enter middle and high school with a relatively common store of knowledge, equipped to wrestle with more advanced content from a roughly common, equitable threshold. The curriculum would anchor professional development. Assessments would be tied to the curriculum, letting students and teachers know whether learning is on track. The importance of teaching this general knowledge would be well understood and strongly embraced.

But alas, that is not our world. These basic building blocks-detailed, well-sequenced elementary standards in each of these subjects and aligned curricula, professional development, and assessments-do not generally exist. Even the time for instruction in the subject areas barely exists. Given this world, how does the savvy state board proceed?

Promising Developments to Build On

It is no fluke that American schools lack the basic building blocks for such curricula. Given this country's strong tradition of local control when it comes to curriculum, state education agencies have typically steered clear of mandating curriculum. They give districts wide latitude and flexibility. Most districts, in turn, push that flexibility to the school level, opting not to require adherence to a strong district curricula.

The trade-offs are real: flexibility yes, but also less opportunity for the optimal learning a curriculum provides, less (or no) opportunity for curriculum-based professional development and collaboration (discussed in David Steiner's article in this issue), for building knowledge intentionally across grades, and for providing teachers with thoughtful, sequenced lessons, reducing their need to scour the internet late at night. And as it turns out, the flexibility to neglect key subjects.

Yet two hopeful things are happening. First, a handful of states are exploring and finding ways to navigate the trade-offs between local control and the need for coherent curriculum. Second, a few publishers of ELA curriculum are making background knowledge central to their materials.

State Incentives for High-Quality Curriculum. Understanding that good curriculum is vital to strengthening achievement, a number of states have been working to encourage their districts to adopt high-quality curricula in ELA and math. Given traditions of local control, the emerging strategy relies on incentives, beginning with simply helping districts identify high-quality curricula.

Louisiana has led the way over the past decade. The state education agency (SEA) first identified high-quality ELA curricula and then provided a variety of incentives for districts to adopt these curricula.

Critically, the state involved educators in developing the rubrics for rating how well commercially available curricula reflected the Common Core standards, an effort undertaken with outside groups that had experience in developing such rubrics, including Student Achievement Partners and Achieve. Teams used the new rubric to review and rate curricula as Tier 1, 2, or 3. Meanwhile, the state teed up incentives and user-friendly tools tied to use of the Tier 1 curricula. These included purchase discounts and a streamlined procurement process. As others in this issue detail, other states are putting similar incentives in place, several as part of the Council of Chief State School Officers' High Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Development network.

At first, few ELA curricula met Louisiana's Tier 1, so the SEA created the Louisiana ELA Guidebooks, which included tightly aligned formative assessments and professional development.[12] That in turn allowed Louisiana to create a pilot assessment under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that aligned to the guidebooks. This was an important departure. Students understand texts better and score better on tests when they are familiar with the topics and vocabulary in them, but ESSA tests by design are based on random knowledge, providing no external incentive to learn a particular set of topics well.

Louisiana instead proposed that the state assessment reflect what was taught. In this way, according to the state's application for the pilot grant, Louisiana intends to ensure that "all students have an equal opportunity to succeed on the test." Notably, educators who use the aligned curricula and assessment will now have a window on how well their students understood what was actually taught-and be able to consider appropriate adjustments.

ELA Curricula That Build Knowledge. Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), for example, explicitly recognizes and takes to heart its role as the main source of students' content knowledge. (Disclosure: I was a long-time member of the Core Knowledge Foundation's Board of Trustees.) As should be the case with a solid ELA curriculum, CKLA is very strong in decoding, writing, and literature. At the same time, it builds content knowledge in geography, history/social studies, science, and the arts, introducing and building on topics in intentional, systematic, thoughtfully sequenced ways. Its second grade curriculum introduces such topics as Early Asian and Ancient Greek civilizations, "Cycles in Nature," the U.S. Civil War, and insects, with units in subsequent grades building on these units.[13] The topical units support ELA standards as well, including, for example, writing assignments that require thinking about key content while providing students opportunities to learn and practice new writing skills.

While not explicitly taking responsibility for building students' overall subject matter knowledge in the same intentional way, a few other curricula nonetheless take it seriously. For example, most of Wit and Wisdom's modules impart important background-building knowledge. The material within each is extremely well sequenced, including readings, discussions, and writing activities on topics within the theme. Second-grade modules are themed "A Season of Change," "The American West, "Civil Rights Heroes" and "Good Eating, with each including literary selections, other readings, and activities that build knowledge and understanding of science, history, and literature understanding.[14]

How State Boards Can Help

U.S. reading scores will rise and students will be better readers when they are learning from elementary curricula designed to build their background knowledge effectively. How can state boards move this work forward?

Explain and educate. The first step, as with virtually any new line of board work, is to educate yourselves, state and district agency leaders, educators, and residents about the importance of background knowledge. One terrific starting point: Survey elementary teachers to find out how much time is currently spent on history/geography/social studies, science, and the arts. Perhaps follow up by inviting experts to speak to the board, state agency staff, and key stakeholder leaders. Consider that at some point you will want to identify key leaders across these groups to further engage and educate their peers.

Work to enact key policies. In the longer run, the goal is to work with your state agency to enact policies that 1) identify high-quality ELA curricula that intentionally build background knowledge, especially in the elementary grades and 2) encourage and incentivize local districts to adopt these curricula. Such incentives could include discounts made possible through state contracts, high-quality professional development and/or benchmark assessments aligned to and offered as part of the purchase agreement, and even final assessments that are aligned.

Seek more information. The Knowledge Matters Campaign, whose central priority is exactly this issue, has released a tool to help judge how well an ELA curriculum builds needed background knowledge. State leaders can also learn from peers in the IMPD network, likely have the greatest expertise in ways to help districts adopt and implement the best curricula. States already incentivizing the adoption of high-quality curricula can stretch to focus on background knowledge and help districts and educators understand the importance of doing so.

The work will not be easy or fast, and there are issues to work through-for example, what topics to prioritize and how to integrate with existing state standards in these subjects. The good news is that good curricula for building students' background knowledge exist. A strong model for incentivizing districts to adopt and implement good curricula also exists. Research backs these efforts. Unlike a decade ago, state education leaders have a solid foundation to build on.

Ruth Wattenberg was president of the District of Columbia State Board of Education in 2019-20 and a member from 2015 to 2022. Previously, she was director of educational issues for the American Federation of Teachers and editor of its professional issues magazine, the American Educator.

Notes

[1] Dan Willingham, "School Time, Knowledge, and Reading Comprehension," Science and Education blog, March 7, 2012.

[2] Susan B. Neuman, Esther Quintero, and Kayla Reist, "Reading Reform across America: A Survey of State Legislation" (Albert Shanker Institute, 2023).

[3] Eric R. Banilower et al., Elementary Science Instruction in the US: Warning Signs and Ways Forward, presentation of the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, April 16, 2020.

[4] Donna R. Recht and Lauren Leslie, "Effect of Prior Knowledge on Good and Poor Readers' Memory of Text," Journal of Educational Psychology 80, no. 1 (1988).

[5] Scientific Advisory Committee, Knowledge Matters Campaign, "Looking to Research for Literacy Success," ASCD blog (February 28, 2023).

[6] T.K. Landauer and S.T. Dumais, "A Solution to Plato's Problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis Theory of Acquisition, Induction, and Representation of Knowledge," Psychological Review 104, no. 2 (1997) : 211-40, https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.104.2.211. Cited in E.D. Hirsch, "Building Knowledge," American Educator (Spring 2006).

[7] E.D. Hirsch Jr. and Louisa C. Moats, "Overcoming the Language Gap: Make Better Use of the Literacy Time Block," American Educator (Summer 2001).

[8] Keith E. Stanovich, "Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy," Reading Research Quarterly 21, 4 (Fall 1986): 360-407. Cited in E.D. Hirsch, "The Case for Bringing Content into the Language Arts Block and for a Knowledge-Rich Curriculum Core for All Children," American Educator (Spring 2006).

[9] Natalie Wexler's excellent The Knowledge Gap includes research evidence and on-the-ground reporting about this issue.

[10] Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (Paul H. Brookes Publishing, 1995).

[11] Daniel T. Willingham, "Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Why Do Students Remember Everything That's on Television and Forget Everything I Say?" American Educator (Summer 2021).

[12] Julia Kaufman, Lindsey E. Thompson, and V. Darleen Opfer, "Creating a Coherent System to Support Instruction Aligned with State Standards: Promising Practices of the Louisiana Department of Education," report (RAND Corporation, 2016).

[13] EdReports, "Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), Report for 2nd Grade," review (April 8, 2017).

[14] EdReports, "Wit & Wisdom, Report for 2nd Grade," review (February 25, 2020).

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How Background Knowledge Builds Good Readers and Why Knowledge Building ELA Curricula Are Vital

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A common base of content knowledge and coherent, comprehensive, and sequential curricula to deliver it are prerequisites for reading comprehension. Most students are not getting what they need.

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Note taking, and two-column note taking in particular, is integrated into several Keys to Literacy professional development offerings. It is used in The Key Comprehension Routine as a strategy for improving reading comprehension. It is used in Keys to Content Writing as a strategy and scaffold for gathering information from sources before writing. It is also used in The Key Vocabulary Routine as a that can be used to deeply teach academic vocabulary. This post provides some suggestions for teaching note taking.
Why should we teach note taking?
Note taking is a procedure for recording information from anything that is read, said, or done. Taking notes enhances students' comprehension as they process, organize, and restate the information in their own words. It also encourages metacognition as students must actively search for main ideas and key supporting details. Finally, it is a valuable tool for gathering and organizing information to write from a variety of sources.

Research clearly identifies note taking as an essential comprehension and writing strategy. (Peverly et al., 2007; Graham & Perin, 2007). In particular, the (Graham & Hebert, 2010), based on a review of the research on the connection between reading and writing, found that teaching students to write notes about text is a highly effective instructional practice for enhancing reading comprehension. The report explains that note taking entails sorting text to determine what is most relevant and paraphrasing this information into written phrases. The report notes:
"Intentionally or unintentionally, note takers organize the abstracted materials in some way, connecting one idea to another, while blending new information with their own knowledge, resulting in new understandings of texts... Taking notes about text proved to be better than just reading, reading and rereading, reading and studying, reading and underlining important information, and receiving explicit instruction in reading practices. "(p. 16)
In addition, there are several Common Core Literacy State Standards (2010) that require students to develop skills related to note taking. Reading standard #1 and writing standard #8 specifically address note taking:

Reading #1:Read closely to determine what the text explicitly says and make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking and writing to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Writing #8:Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources.
Two-Column Note Format
To take notes, students must identify main ideas and key details, paraphrase them using as few words as possible, and record them in a structured format. The two-column format that Keys to Literacy uses was adapted from the Cornell Note System originally developed in the 1950's at Cornell University for use with college students (Pauk, 1997).

A page of two-column notes consists of a vertical line down a page with a horizontal line at the top, as shown in the visual below. The vertical line is drawn about 1/3 of the way from the left-hand side of the paper. The main ideas are written on the left and associated key details are written on the right. The heading or topic is listed at the top above the horizontal line.

Here are some free resources related to note taking that you can access at the Keys to Literacy website:
Taking Two-Column Notes Using Word Processing
If your students are taking notes using a device such as a laptop or tablet, the best way to set up a page for two-column notes is to use the table function in your word processing program. View the examples at the end of this blog entry. Here are the directions if you are using Microsoft WORD:

1. Open up the table feature.

2. Insert a table that has 2 columns and approximately 5 rows (the number of rows you need will depend on how many main ideas will be listed in the left column - 1 row for each main idea).

3. The table will automatically produce two columns that are the same width. You can change the column width to make the right column (details) wider than the left column (main ideas) by using fixed column width to move the vertical line to the left.

4. Type a main idea in one of the cells in the left column, then add related details to the cell in the right column. When you are ready to add another main idea, move to the next cell in the left column and type in the main idea. Then add details in the right column.

5. Repeat the steps above until the notes are completed. The cells will expand to accommodate all of your text. You can add or delete rows depending on the number of main ideas you identify.

For additional directions about using the table feature in Word, use the Help tool in your word processing program.
Beyond the Format
Beyond the two-column format, the more challenging part of note taking instruction is teaching students the underlying sub-skills needed to take notes effectively, including:

main idea skills

distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information

paraphrasing

writing concisely and using abbreviation

using visual cues such as arrows, stars, brackets, and underlines to organize notes

listening and attending skills when taking notes from a lecture, audio, or video source

integrating information into notes from multiple sources

If you would like to learn more about teaching note taking, please consider taking our online course titled How to Teach Two-Column Note Taking.

Here are three examples of two column notes:

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Explicit Instruction of Note Taking Skills - Keys to Literacy

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This post provides suggestions for teaching note-taking.

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The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review  (Reid Smith, Pam Snow)

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The Role of Background Knowledge in Reading Comprehension: A Critical Review  (Reid Smith, Pam Snow)

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The Active Ingredient in Reading Comprehension Strategy Intervention for Struggling Readers: A Bayesian Network Meta-analysis

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The Active Ingredient in Reading Comprehension Strategy Intervention for Struggling Readers: A Bayesian Network Meta-analysis

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"In a fit of anger, Moses smashed the tablet against the ground."

A group of young students reading that sentence will come to different conclusions. Depending on how familiar they are with the Bible, some may recognize it as a parable. Others may reel at the thought of an expensive electronic device being destroyed in a fit of pique. For linguistics and literacy researchers Carsten Elbro and Ida Buch-Iversen, coauthors of a landmark 2013 study on background knowledge, the difference between the two interpretations has little to do with a student's reading comprehension skills.

Students who properly decode the words and understand the basic structure of a text may still come up short in measures of comprehension because they fail "to activate relevant, existing background knowledge," Elbro and Buch-Iversen explain in the study. That's because students constantly make inferences and seek connections to their lives to make sense of what they're reading-understanding what Moses was actually doing depends more on whether you were raised as a Christian than on your ability to grasp the sentence's literal meaning.

In their study, Elbro and Buch-Iversen separated 236 sixth-grade students into two groups. One group of students used concept maps to connect related ideas-an exercise that helped them build a lattice of intertwined knowledge across subjects like biology, technology, sociology, and history. The second group participated in business-as-usual instruction centered around reading strategies such as summarizing and making predictions. After eight 30-minute sessions, the background knowledge students scored twice as high on tests of general reading comprehension, compared with their peers, with sizable improvements across fiction and nonfiction texts.

A decade later, new research-this time encompassing more than 10 times the number of students-confirms those findings. A groundbreaking Harvard study published last year investigated the benefits of a 10-week, knowledge-rich approach to building reading comprehension in elementary students. Instead of emphasizing traditional skills like identifying the main idea or citing evidence from the text, the researchers asked the youngsters to read widely on a topic in order to develop "generalized schemas that can be accessed and deployed when new, but related, topics are encountered." Students read about dinosaurs, for example, and thus build a deeper understanding of how scientists collect data to study past events. Those students scored 18 percent higher on later, science-related reading comprehension tests, compared with their peers.

Here are six prereading activities to help students build background knowledge and fill in conceptual gaps before tackling new texts.

1. Sustained inquiry. "When I started looking into what's called the achievement gap in education, I was told that the problem was high school," Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap, told Edutopia in 2022. "But the problems that become really obvious in high school, for the most part, have their roots in the way we teach elementary school." In successful elementary schools, Wexler noticed that English language arts (ELA) lessons often looked like they belonged in science classrooms-in one example, fourth graders studied detailed anatomical diagrams in ELA and learned words like cardio and circulatory. By committing content knowledge to long-term memory, these students were able to continue exploring the topics while devoting more working memory to comprehension, Wexler discovered.

Wexler's observations align with what experts recommend: a sustained, thoughtfully sequenced, content-oriented approach to building strong reading skills. When planning for the academic year, "consider the topics to be covered for the year and then ask yourself, 'How can we integrate instruction around a coherent schema?'" suggest James Kim and Mary Burkhauser, who led the Harvard study on background knowledge. Instead of covering one topic and then moving on to something unrelated, look for ways to tie broader themes together, and revisit and reinforce them often: "Consider larger schema (the trees) that connect the topics (branches) you are expected to cover."

If students are going to read about Roman emperors, for example, you can prepare them by exploring and reading widely across related, universal themes like civilization-building, governance, and codes of law, helping to build a rich foundation of vocabulary and thematic knowledge that students can access as they read future texts that touch upon the same concepts.

2. Vocabulary games. In a 2019 study, students who were familiar with less than 59 percent of core terms in a topic struggled to understand the reading material. But quickly memorizing new terms in isolation won't result in lasting recall.

Consider spending more time on vocabulary acquisition, be multimodal, and make connections to other learning, writes Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA's Teacher Education Program. She recommends using photos to introduce new words to kids or connecting the words to things they're familiar with, are interested in, or have learned before. Students can also draw the words or work in small groups to talk about them. The dictionaries shouldn't come out until students have worked hard to discover the definitions on their own, Alber suggests. As the list of foundational vocabulary grows over the course of the year, try word sorts-grouping words with related meaning together-or pick five terms from the course and ask students to chat quickly about how they are interrelated before they each write a quick paragraph linking the terms.

Instructional coach Hannah Bradley builds engagement by playing word games-an approach that works across subjects and age groups. "In my experience, the lighthearted nature of these games provides students with a fun, safe, and low-stakes environment where they feel more confident to just have a go," she writes. A great starter activity is From A to Z, a five-to-eight-minute game in which students work in small groups to brainstorm words related to a topic being studied for every letter of the alphabet. Word-association games like Just One or Telephone Pictionary can help students see how concepts are interrelated, building a more robust network of interrelated ideas.

3. Station rotation. Before jumping into a new lesson, you can set up several tables with related reading materials-comics, photo collections, poetry, introductory videos, or news articles, for example-to give students multiple entry points while building familiarity with key events and people, says high school social studies teacher Tim Smyth. When Smyth starts a unit on World War II, he sets up seven tables, each with a central theme-Holocaust, leading women, and key battles, for example-which students dig into while taking notes. They also answer reflection questions such as, "Describe one image you saw that jumped out at you. Why did you choose this one?" or "What are three questions you have/want to know more about?"

"As we delved more deeply into World War II content in the weeks following book study, students made powerful connections between new content and the texts they explored at the start of the unit," writes Smyth. "And they were better able to retain the information and see the bigger picture by referring back to the texts they explored."

For topics that students learn at a younger age, you can use materials they're already familiar with-using clippings from National Geographic to explore different ecosystems, for example, or short YouTube videos that delve into an interesting topic like how cavities form or what germs are-to build engagement and introduce complex ideas. Graphic novels can be used to introduce challenging concepts, says middle and high school teacher Jason DeHart, while excerpts from your students' favorite sci-fi or historical fiction novels can be entry points to reading more complex texts. By starting with materials that students are already familiar with, you're helping students make connections to new ideas that may otherwise be elusive.

4. Hexagonal thinking. An engaging pre-lesson activity that doubles as a way to refresh what students have learned and help them make new connections, hexagonal thinking uses cut-out hexagons-each covering a single term or concept-to explore novel insights. Working in small groups, students first create or are given a list of key ideas, which are then written on separate hexagons made digitally or from paper, card stock, or sticky notes. Students then connect the hexagons, linking related ideas together. For example, if students are learning about animal habitats, they can arrange animals by biome (forest, plains, desert) and investigate similarities and differences. Each group may have a completely different configuration of hexagons, providing fodder for a creative discussion.
Courtesy of Betsy Potash / Cult of Pedagogy
5. Tools to map the conceptual terrain. If you've ever jumped into a book (or television) series midway, you know that it can be disorienting. That's because a good story relies on familiarity with past events to keep the audience from getting bogged down. Similarly, students with ample prior knowledge are more likely to keep pace with a lesson.

When starting a new lesson, students unfamiliar with the topic are often overwhelmed by the amount of new information they need to process. Using graphic organizers-anchor charts and concept maps, for example-can help them map the conceptual terrain, bringing into sharp focus the difference between main ideas and support details, or how big concepts relate to each other. In a 2021 study, middle school students who used graphic organizers to organize their thinking around the topic they were learning about-the seasons-improved their factual recall by 45 percent and comprehension by 64 percent, compared with students who had simply studied the material.

For fictional texts, K-8 special education teacher Dianne Stratford recommends using story maps -an activity that helps young readers "understand the elements of a story, such as characters, setting, problem, and solution, or sequential points of the story, such as beginning, middle, and end." Not only will it help students remember the story, but it'll help provide a framework for understanding any future texts they encounter.

6. Pretending to learn. In Oscar Carillo's kindergarten class, students learn about the different parts of a car-the pedals and wheels, for example-while dashing around the room making "Vroom, vroom!" sounds. In another story, they pretend to be sharks and turtles swimming through water. Not only does it strengthen oral language skills, says Principal Sarah Bartels Marrero, but also it helps them "understand the shape of a story."

Asking young learners to imagine story events and engage in pretend play as a prereading activity helps them build "world knowledge," according to a 2018 study. When preschoolers spent 10 minutes pretending that they were chefs in a restaurant cooking pizza-rolling the dough, adding toppings, and then baking the pizza, for example-they predictably outperformed their peers (who had played with unrelated toys) on tests on pizza-making knowledge. The pretend-play kids were also able to make better inferences-reading between the lines to answer questions around a character's goal or motivations, for example-outperforming their peers by more than double.

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How to Move From the 'Main Idea' to 'Background Knowledge'

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Traditional approaches to reading instruction-such as finding the "main idea"-are less effective than a knowledge-rich approach, the research shows.

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In many discussions on the science of reading, phonics is featured on the main stage. This is most likely because, unlike language comprehension, word recognition is a constrained skill-one with a limit-that can be mastered, typically within a few years of initial teaching. However, if we don't pay attention to the bigger beast of language comprehension from the earliest grades, students without this opportunity will fall further and further behind their peers. We need to rethink our approach to teaching reading comprehension.

We think about reading comprehension as the product of word recognition and language comprehension. Nationally, we've done a great job getting the word out on the importance of phonics. This is, arguably, the easiest part of the equation to get right. However, that's not all that needs to happen in the early years so students are successful readers later on.

Two pathways to teaching reading comprehension

We at NWEA recently spoke with Natalie Wexler, an education writer and author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-And How to Fix It. Natalie reminds us that "We really have to see literacy developing along two pathways that are going to be, to some extent, pretty separate in the early years."

These pathways are word recognition and language comprehension. While phonics has a mound of intervention research on how to effectively get students to reading fluency, cognitive science tells us that students need to acquire plenty of knowledge to be able to understand the texts they encounter, and that this must start early on. Otherwise, the opportunity gaps between kids with experiences to gain background knowledge and kids without will only grow wider.

Natalie highlights how students "are going to be acquiring those foundational skills [of phonics and decoding] through decodable readers and practicing fluency." But she adds, "That's not how they're going to be acquiring new knowledge and vocabulary of a new topic... That's really going to come through this other pathway, which is reading aloud text that's probably more complex than they can read themselves and engaging them in discussion of that content."

In the early years, these pathways to becoming a reader are largely separate. Younger students or older readers with decoding difficulties won't yet be able to read texts that are building their vocabulary and knowledge. They need to have these rich and complex texts read aloud to them. What does this mean for educators? Both paths need to be effectively taught for the best chance of literacy success in the upper elementary grades and later in life. One doesn't come before the other-decoding and comprehension both must be valued in the early grades-and both must have adequate instructional time devoted.

What is reading comprehension?

Natalie says, "we have to think of reading comprehension as a process." Sometimes you may hear teachers asking comprehension questions about a text to students. This is thinking of comprehension as a product, not a process. Assessing students' comprehension of a text by asking them questions is not the same as teaching students to comprehend.

Comprehension is a metacognitive skill, one that is developed through purposely choosing text sets to build knowledge and leveraging specific reading comprehension strategies to help students acquire this knowledge and apply these metacognitive skills on their own.

So how do we go about building knowledge?

Reading strategies should not be the focus of teaching reading comprehension. Instead, they should be used in service of teaching students new content. The most recent research suggests we use three strategies to help students learn the content of the texts they are reading. Specifically, when combined with instruction in vocabulary and background knowledge, these strategies are most helpful in building student knowledge and understanding. We can teach students to:

1. Identify the text structure

2. Using the text structure, identify the main idea

3. Summarize a text by expanding on the main idea

If students can summarize a text, they now have a situation model to work from. Think of it like helping them build a web of Velcro that all the details in the text can stick to. Teaching students to use these steps will help them build the metacognitive muscles they'll need to do this type of understanding on their own. By helping students arrive at a coherent understanding, teachers position readers to do the deep work of making inferences, generating questions, and making connections.

Imagine, for example, a class of first-grade students learning about animals and their habitats in science. They read an informational text about owls. Their teacher may then plan to use the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen to help students step into the role of the child protagonist who is going owling for the first time. Their teacher may refer to what the students learned about owls' eyesight and sleeping patterns from the informational text. With these goals in mind, the teacher may use various reading strategies and activities to help students understand what they are reading and gain knowledge about animals and their habitats.

Before reading, the teacher may activate students' background knowledge from the earlier lesson by asking questions like, "What are the 'special powers' we learned about owls yesterday?" and "What are owls' sleeping patterns like?" Activating these concepts will help students make connections during the narrative story. The teacher may also focus students on a problem-solution sentence stem or a narrative story map to help them better understand the plot. The work could be displayed on an anchor chart in a student-friendly format so the class can take notes together. This could transition to students taking brief notes on a graphic organizer or dry-erase board once they are more independent spellers, typically toward the middle of the year.

During reading, the teacher may ask connecting questions to help solidify knowledge, such as, "When did this happen?" and "Why do you think Pa chose to take them owling so late?" The teacher may also highlight the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary that is related to understanding the content, such as "pine trees," "meadow," or "clearing." The teacher can list these words on index cards so students can refer to them and use them in their writing throughout the unit. As they encounter a plot element, they can record it together on their graphic organizer.

After reading, the class could talk about the plot structure and use the completed graphic organizer or sentence stems to summarize the story. The teacher could also have students add descriptive words about the owl's habitat to their science journal. This could be extended to a few sentences to explain why it was so difficult to find an owl. Students may also be guided to use a graphic organizer to compare their learning about the owl habitat to the habitat of a field mouse they explored while reading Frederick by Leo Lionni.

Notice that each of the strategies and activities-from recognizing a story's structure, to summarizing, to eliciting details and answering questions, to comparing and contrasting-are all in service of learning content related to the science unit on animals and their habitats. The focus of reading a new text is not on learning a certain strategy but using the strategies to learn the content.

Natalie notes, "There is evidence that teaching kids comprehension strategies, or at least certain kinds of comprehension strategies, does boost their comprehension. But we've been trying to do this in the abstract... What really will work better is teaching a topic and bringing in whatever strategy or skill is appropriate to help kids think deeply about that topic and understand that text for that topic."

Recommendations for teachers

When teaching reading comprehension, I encourage teachers to avoid choosing texts to focus on a particular comprehension skill or strategy. Choose texts instead based on the content focus. Here are some suggestions for how to align your instructional focus with best practices in reading science:

Plan to use texts that revolve around a specific science or social studies topic. These can be both narrative and informational texts, as in the narrative example I shared earlier. Using texts around a common topic enables students to build a rich and enduring web of knowledge.

Teach students to identify the text structure and generate a main idea statement. This enables students to understand and summarize what they are reading more easily. When students understand the main idea of a text, it empowers them to move into higher levels of understanding.

Explicitly teach and review new vocabulary that relates back to the science or social studies topic. Help students understand how these words relate to one another and the topic at hand. Research in cognitive science suggests using distributed practice enables students to learn more words and, therefore, understand more concepts.

Recommendations for school administrators

If you're a school administrator, here are some ways to support your teachers in this work of shifting from a strategy focus to a content focus when teaching reading comprehension:

Provide teachers with high-quality text sets for read-alouds related to your grade-level science and social studies standards. In second grade and up, also provide multiple copies of chapter books around these topics for students to discuss in small groups or as a whole-class book study.

Provide teachers high-quality professional learning and time to plan. Teachers need to be able to think deeply with one another about the vocabulary to highlight and strategies to use to help students acquire information and learn new concepts. Use practitioner articles to guide PLCs in integrating new practices into your existing curricula.

Create a culture of collaboration. Give time for art, music, PE, and other shared-subjects teachers to plan lessons around the topic of study. Students are more likely to learn deeply when they are building common knowledge across class periods.

Learn more

To hear more from Natalie on the importance effectively teaching reading comprehension, watch our interview with her.

For additional ideas and tips on literacy instruction from Teach. Learn. Grow. authors, browse our archive of ELA posts.

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The science of teaching reading comprehension - Teach. Learn. Grow.

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When teaching reading comprehension, educators must give kids opportunities to gain knowledge needed to understand texts they encounter.

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Just how much does it help to teach children to use strategies when they read--strategies like creating a graphic organizer of the passage, or summarizing as they read, or asking themselves questions and answering them?

I've just published an article in Educational Leadership summarizing the research on this question, and I'll summarize it here.

In 2006, I argued that there was lots of evidence that comprehension strategy instruction worked, and in fact, yielded a big boost to comprehension. I was in good company-The National Reading Panel had drawn the same conclusion five years earlier.

But I also argued that there was no evidence that practice of these strategies provided any additional benefit. I based that conclusion on two meta-analyses-research that synthesizes the results of different studies. Meta-analysis allows one to compare relatively brief exposure to strategy instruction (a total of, say, five hours) versus more practice with strategies (twenty hours). Both meta-analyses suggested that there was no benefit to more practice.

There's been a good deal of research since then. In my recent article, I report that the number of meta-analyses is now up to twelve, and all are in accord. Practice has no impact on the effectiveness of comprehension strategy instruction.

That observation matters for two reasons. First, and most obviously, it suggests that although it's well worth the time to teach students comprehension strategies, there's no reason to devote a lot of time to practicing them. A total of five or ten hours of instruction yields the same advantage as twenty or thirty hours.

Second, this finding suggests that strategy instruction works for a different reason than I suspect many people believe.

It's tempting to think of comprehension strategy instruction as analogous to coaching in baseball. If you're a poor hitter, a coach shows you how good a hitter swings. You practice that swing and, in time, it becomes automatic and replaces the older, less effective habit. Likewise, we might think that comprehension strategies show less competent readers the way that more competent readers approach texts.

But this hypothesized "coaching" mechanism doesn't make any sense because it depends on practice, and the data indicate that practice doesn't help.

Here's an alternative interpretation. When a typically-developing child starts school they can use oral language to make inferences, connect sentences, and understand the overall gist of a message. These same mental processes are put to work to support reading comprehension. Indeed, it would be odd if the brain created specialized reading comprehension processes from scratch, rather applying to reading the mental processes that are already in place to support oral language.

The mental processes of reading comprehension don't require or benefit from practice because children are already quite good at them when they start school.

According to this account, strategy instruction is comparable to a strategy like "check your work" in math. It doesn't improve the processes that actually do math. It's a useful way of controlling those processes.

In the same way, comprehension strategy instruction probably has no impact on the processes of comprehension per se, but it reminds students that they are supposed to coordinate meaning across sentences and paragraphs, and to get the gist of the passage; in short, it reminds them that reading is not simply a matter of decoding each word until you reach the last one.

But that's not quite the end of the story.

My description of comprehension strategy instruction could be interpreted as implying that reading instruction should end around fourth grade. Schooling should include phonics instruction, some work to support fluency, and then perhaps two weeks of comprehension strategy instruction. What's the point of anything else, if comprehension can't be taught? (I hadn't thought of this implication of my account until Tim Shanahan pointed it out.)

Surely that implication can't be right. Explaining why calls for differentiating types of comprehension.

I've suggested that strategies prompt children to apply already-present oral language comprehension processes.

An example would be anaphora resolution, as when a listener finds the referent for "he" in "he went to church." Another example would be inferences supporting causality or explanation; seeking to understand why things happened seems to be a core aspect of cognition. And indeed, we know a four-year old has no difficulty in making causal bridging inferences in everyday conversation, as when a parent says "You seem bored. Shall we go outside?"

Exactly what prompts inferences in oral language or reading has been difficult to pin down, and there are surely individual differences. I think it's uncontroversial that the two examples I've offered are universal.

It's also uncontroversial that students are asked to do things with texts that go beyond comprehension supported by oral language processes. They learn sophisticated ways of evaluating arguments; for example, to appreciate that correlation is not equivalent to causation. They learn to evaluate the quality of writing, as when they come to understand how a good paragraph is structured. They also learn tools of analysis that are discipline-specific: why a novelist uses foreshadowing, for example, or how to interpret source information when reading historical documents.

Clearly, these skills must be taught, and there is every reason to think that they are subject to practice effects.

So we should differentiate kinds of comprehension. Some comprehension is supported by processes initially acquired for oral language, and presumably these processes yield a fairly basic understanding of the who, what, where, why, and how of the text. Other comprehension processes offer more sophisticated analysis, and these need to be explicitly taught.

An implication of this hypothesis is that the comprehension tests used in strategy research lean heavily on the first type of process; comprehension tests demand a basic understanding, not a more complex analysis. That prediction has not been tested, so far as I know.

I've long argued for the critical importance of knowledge in reading comprehension, but knowledge isn't everything-teaching students certain types of analysis is critical as well. Understanding how each applies to instruction can help us maximize student enjoyment of and achievement in reading.

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Can Children Be Taught to Comprehend What they Read?

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Just how much does it help to teach children to use strategies when they read--strategies like creating a graphic organizer of the passage, or summarizing as they read, or asking themselves...

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A practice guide is a publication that presents recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. They are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts.

To search by Topic or Keyword, use the Practice Guide Search.

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A practice guide is a publication that presents recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. They are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts. To search by Topic or Keyword, use the Practice Guide Search.

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For decades, conventional wisdom held that reading comprehension depended on the acquisition of isolatable, teachable, and generalizable skills, such as "finding the main idea." This notion led to the widespread adoption of many dubious practices, often united in the "workshop model," including giving students their choice of books that supposedly matched their reading level, devoting large stretches of class time to "sustained silent independent reading," and focusing too much attention on reading comprehension "skills and strategies."

In this policy brief, Daniel Buck challenges this orthodoxy, arguing that once students have learned to decode, reading with understanding depends more on broad knowledge of the world than generalizable skills. To improve student comprehension, teachers and schools must do their best to impart such knowledge through systematic exposure to history, literature, science, and other subjects.

Executive Summary

The conventional wisdom among educators and literacy gurus is that reading comprehension depends on the acquisition of isolatable, teachable, and generalizable skills. Consequently, many elementary and middle school English classrooms follow the "reading workshop" model, an approach to literacy instruction with several variations that typically involve teachers spending a few minutes modeling a supposedly important skill before sending students off to practice by reading self-selected but appropriately "leveled" books.

This policy brief challenges that orthodoxy. It asserts that, once students have learned to decode, reading books and other texts of any purported "level" with understanding depends more on knowledge than skills and that successful knowledge building requires explicit, carefully sequenced and paced, teacher-directed instruction across multiple subjects, including but not limited to social studies, science, and literature.
Key Questions Q1: Does reading comprehension depend on acquiring a set of teachable skills? Answer: Not really. While core "decoding" skills are clearly essential, comprehending decoded text depends mostly on broad knowledge of the world. Q2: Do students need practice with "just right" books? Answer: Not for that purpose. In general, the difficulty of texts is less important than the content students learn from them. Q3: Does letting students choose the books they read foster the motivation necessary to improve reading comprehension? Answer: To a certain extent. But in the long run, giving students too much discretion will limit their exposure to challenging texts and vital content knowledge. Q4: Does extended literacy instruction enhance reading comprehension? Answer: Potentially, assuming the additional time is not spent on independent reading. To become strong readers, students need the background knowledge that comes from systematic exposure to history, science, and other subjects. The Bottom Line
Reading comprehension depends on the acquisition of decoding, vocabulary, and knowledge, not "comprehension skills" as such. Yet the instructional practices and curricula that are the foundation for many English classrooms assume otherwise. How to alter that situation for the benefit of students is an important challenge for education leaders and policy makers.
Recommendations 1. Include essential content in state standards in a coordinated way across multiple subjects. 2. Require the adoption and use of knowledge-rich curricula. 3. Ensure that state and local accountability systems incentivize the deployment and consumption of knowledge-rich curricula. 4. Emphasize the importance of knowledge building in teacher preparation and development.
Introduction

We tend to conceive of struggling readers as lacking basic decoding skills and phonemic awareness, so busy stumbling over simple words that they can't really attend to comprehension. Yet for every kid who struggles to decode, there's another who reads fluently but betrays a lack of understanding.

As with most educational failures, this is partly about the adults. For decades, teachers of K-12 English and language arts have been taught that reading comprehension is a constellation of teachable skills and that imparting those skills to students is the surest way to assure their comprehension of whatever they read. Less-skilled readers fail to use strategies such as asking questions, monitoring comprehension, and making inferences, the thinking goes, so to help them improve, teachers must model those skills and provide substantial time to practice them. This approach is the basis for the ubiquitous " reader's workshop" or " workshop model," a varied classroom model wherein a teacher typically spends a few minutes modeling a skill before sending students off to read self-selected books independently, after which they may come together in groups to discuss what they've read.[1][2]

Yet, as explained below, this conception of reading is the product of flawed assumptions. To be sure, students benefit from some instruction in comprehension skills and strategies. But in practice, putting too much emphasis on these elements is counterproductive, especially insofar as it leaves students without the knowledge they need to comprehend many of the texts they will encounter.

Q1: Does reading comprehension depend on a set of teachable skills?
Answer: Not really. While core "decoding" skills are clearly essential, comprehending decoded text depends mostly on broad knowledge of the world.
The prevailing view of reading comprehension began to form in the 1970s and 1980s, as researchers investigated the cognitive processes that humans use to think. In the Handbook of Research on Reading Comprehension, researchers Janice Dole, Jeffery Nokes, and Dina Drits define cognitive skills and strategies as "mental routines or procedures for accomplishing cognitive goals like solving a problem, studying for a test, or understanding what is being read." [3] Less-skilled readers lack these abilities, according to the authors, so teachers need to provide "declarative knowledge" about what the strategies are and "procedural knowledge" about how to apply them.[4]

This view reached its apotheosis in April 2000 when the National Reading Panel released its report Teaching Children to Read. Formed in 1997 at the behest of Congress and housed in the National Institutes of Health, this panel of experts reviewed the research on literacy instruction and produced an influential report on the importance of fluency, phonics, and vocabulary instruction. On many of those fronts, the authors' recommendations remain widely accepted among reading experts. However, the section of the report that dealt with reading comprehension was only partly right and led to dubious practices.

To address the research on reading comprehension, the panel reviewed 481 studies and identified sixteen categories of comprehension instruction that had received scientific review, including seven ( in bold) that appeared to have "a firm scientific basis for concluding that they improve comprehension in normal readers." [5]

Comprehension monitoring

Cooperative learning

Curriculum

Graphic organizer

Listening actively

Mental imagery

Mnemonic

Multiple strategies

Prior knowledge

Psycholinguistic

Question answering

Question generation

Story structure

Summarization

Teacher preparation

Vocabulary comprehension

Per the list, countless studies have confirmed that strategies such as encouraging mental imagery while reading, question asking, and story mapping improve subsequent reading comprehension." [6][7][8] Yet what's rarely asked is how much skills instruction is necessary, useful, or effective. Like many medicines, reading strategies can be toxic when administered too frequently or in excessive doses-in this case, because they crowd out beneficial opportunities for students to learn content from text. And while the report acknowledges the importance of "prior knowledge," the focus on skills and strategies ultimately swamped this vital aspect of literacy.

As early as the 90s, some researchers were noting important limitations in the research. For example, one meta-analysis found that the effects of reading comprehension strategies were far larger on researcher-designed assessments (which may be artificially aligned with the strategy) than on standardized tests (where the effects were usually statistically insignificant).[9] Nor did it seem to matter if teachers taught two, four, or ten comprehension strategies or if they increased the dosage for specific strategies. In fact, some of the studies with the greatest number of instructional sessions found null effects.

None of these findings should surprise us. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has likened reading strategies to academic habits such as learning to "check your work" in math class.[10] There's not much to it once you've instilled the habit, so we shouldn't expect increasing the dosage to lead to greater returns.

More recent work also calls some of the early research into question. Several newer studies have found that strategies, including comprehension monitoring, clarifying, predicting, making connections, questioning, and summarizing, have null or very small effects on reading comprehension on standardized tests.[11][12][13][14] A 2019 meta-analysis also confirmed earlier conclusions: some strategy instruction works, but effect sizes are nonsignificant on standardized tests and most strategies require only brief instruction to accomplish what they can.[15] And another meta-analysis concluded that effects could be negative if strategy instruction wasn't paired with background knowledge instruction, which the authors defined as "teaching students vocabulary and/or content knowledge" related to the text.[16]

As that summary suggests, we must consider the opportunity cost of skills-based instruction. Most educational programming is better than nothing, so the real question is whether a skills-based approach to reading comprehension is better or worse than alternative approaches and/or uses of elementary and middle school class time.

Famously, Professor E.D. Hirsch popularized a competing conception of reading comprehension-namely, that reading depends on general knowledge of the world, rather than abstract skills.[17] Our ability to identify the main idea of a passage or make an inference, he argued, depends on our knowledge of the topic that the passage is about, not our mastery of those skills.

Perhaps the most famous piece of evidence for this knowledge-centered theory of reading comprehension is the "Baseball Study," [18] in which researchers gave children whose reading level and knowledge of the game varied an excerpt about baseball and then tested their comprehension. Ultimately, a child's knowledge of baseball, not their predetermined reading ability, predicted their comprehension and recall of the story. Poor readers and good readers with high knowledge of the game performed equally, as did both sets of readers with low knowledge.

Since the Baseball Study was conducted, numerous other studies have confirmed that knowledge of a topic has a huge effect on a reader's ability to comprehend a text." [19][20] However, while there is a broad consensus among researchers that knowledge matters, empirical research on the link between knowledge-based instruction and reading comprehension is limited.[21] As proponents of this approach have noted, it is inherently difficult to study.[22] After all, knowledge of the world comes from many places-and the knowledge that school imparts is divided across multiple subjects, often taught by separate teachers-and it can take years to build the broad knowledge required to understand even a simple newspaper article.

Still, the research we do have is promising. For example, a recent meta-analysis of knowledge building during elementary literacy instruction found a significant positive effect on vocabulary and reading comprehension.[23] Such content-based instruction can include the selection of texts for their subject content (e.g., Greek myths or historical fiction); reading nonfiction texts that relate to a classroom novel (e.g., an article about life in Victorian England while reading A Christmas Carol); discussions and activities that focus on what a text says rather than the application of strategies; and explicit vocabulary instruction.

Of the handful of studies that have investigated the effects of knowledge-based pedagogies, the most important is a six-year, small-scale, randomized-controlled trial that followed 2,300 students who applied for admission to Core Knowledge schools-a network of public charter schools that emphasized a coherent, carefully sequence, and knowledge-rich curriculum-of whom 700 were admitted via lottery.[24] When the researchers compared the performance of these students to the performance of students who didn't gain admission, they found that attending a Core Knowledge School effectively eliminated the socioeconomic achievement gap in reading.

Other studies also suggest that a knowledge-based pedagogy can be effective. For example, in a 2009 study that split classrooms into three groups-a content-focused group, a skills-focused group, and a basal reader group[25] -students in the content group significantly outperformed their peers on more open-ended recall tasks, providing both longer and more detailed summaries. Although the study's scope was limited to a single district (meaning its results don't necessarily generalize to other contexts), it is one of the few experiments to directly compare the efficacy of skills- and content-based approaches.

Put simply, knowledge of the world, not generalizable reading comprehension skills, determines reading ability. The average American reader would breeze through an article on baseball but would likely struggle to comprehend a simple passage about cricket without prior exposure to terms like "run chase" and "wicket." Embedded within any newspaper is a vast amount of assumed knowledge that journalists and op-ed writers take for granted-from the fall of the Soviet Union to "1776." But of course, students aren't born with this knowledge, which is why the most effective teachers build the capacity for reading comprehension by relentlessly exposing students to content-rich texts rather than teaching "reading comprehension."

Q2: Do students need practice with "just right" books?
Answer: Not for that purpose. In general, the difficulty of texts is less important than the content students learn from them.
Traditionally, practitioners of the workshop model have divided texts into three levels: independent (what students can read without help), instruction (accessible with support and instruction), and frustration (so difficult that a student will struggle even with the help of a good teacher). According to the model's proponents, students need time practicing their comprehension skills and strategies on "just right" books that are at their instructional level-that is, books that are neither too hard nor too easy. In practice, this means that many students-in some schools, most students-are taught with below-grade-level texts that expose them to easier language and different content.

There are several systems for predicting how hard texts may be based on sentence structure and vocabulary, Lexile and Guided Reading Level being among the most common. To determine a student's score, teachers mark errors as students read aloud and then answer basic comprehension questions. Typically, students are assigned to read texts that supposedly match their reading levels. The most popular curricula actively encourage teachers to organize their classroom resources or even the classroom library by supposed textual difficulty.[26][27]

Matching textual difficulty to a student's competency makes intuitive sense; high schoolers need more than Dr. Seuss, and first graders needn't struggle through Chaucer's Canterbury Tale s in the original Middle English. Still, such leveling shouldn't be taken too literally, especially if reading comprehension mostly depends on knowledge of specific topics as opposed to some generalizable and measurable "skill."

Reading researcher Timothy Shanahan, one of the experts on the National Reading Panel, has traced the genesis of text leveling to a researcher named Emmet Betts and his graduate student P.A. Killgalon, who determined that students who could accurately read 95 percent of the words in a passage could answer the majority of comprehension questions.[28] Unsurprisingly, higher rates of inaccuracy were associated with a breakdown in comprehension. However, at no point did the researchers posit that teaching students at particular levels was beneficial. Rather, it was literacy gurus Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell who popularized text leveling with their Guided Reading curriculum, along with fellow guru Lucy Calkins, who stressed the importance of moving students "up levels of text complexity by providing them with lots of just-right, high-interest texts and the time to read them."[29]

Ultimately, there is little research to support this approach. For example, to defend the use of text leveling, Calkins' Reading and Writing Workshop site invokes a research review from professor Richard Allington, but the evidence Allington cites is a series of correlational studies from the 1970s and 80s.[30][31] For example, Allington cites a 1979 study by Linda M. Anderson, Carolyn M. Evertson, and Jere E. Brophy as evidence that students need lots of practice reading with minimal errors.[32] But in addition to being fundamentally correlational, the study only mentions reading out loud in group scenarios.[33] To conclude that students benefit from text leveling based on such paltry evidence borders on malpractice.

If anything, more recent and rigorous research that investigates text leveling-including several randomized controlled trials-demonstrates the benefits of challenging texts. For example, an interesting cluster of studies that examined "dyad reading," where teachers pair weak readers with strong readers, found that " students progressed more quickly by reading frustration-level materials." [34][35] Similarly, one (admittedly short-term) study found that students benefited from reading instruction-level texts (i.e. texts that were supposedly too challenging) with supports such as partners or pretaught story diagrams instead of independent level texts alone.[36] Finally, one meta-analysis that examined text difficulty as it pertains to fluency-a precursor to comprehension-concluded that "our best guess is that more difficult materials would lead to greater gains in achievement." [37]

In fact, research suggests that other considerations matter more than textual difficulty. For example, one study found that students who were exposed to a sequenced, knowledge-centric curriculum that used challenging texts saw larger gains in fluency and comprehension than students who were exposed to a skills-centric curriculum that emphasized practicing reading comprehension strategies on leveled texts.[38] In another experiment, researchers asked students to read six texts that cohered around one idea (e.g., "birds") or a collection of disparate topics. In their words, "Results revealed that students who read the conceptually coherent texts demonstrated more knowledge of the concepts in their texts, more knowledge of the target words in their texts, and had better recall of the novel text compared to students who read unrelated texts." [39] Other studies have confirmed this finding.[40]

As these examples suggest, a careful reading of the research suggests that text leveling is less important and effective than constructing a coherent instructional sequence that exposes students to a thoughtful variety of genres and related topics. In other words, rather than obsessing over textual difficulty, educators might better serve students by asking themselves other questions. For example, does our curriculum expose children to topics they might not encounter outside of school? Does it offer opportunities to discuss related historical events? Does it include significant works of literature or nonfiction that are important for understanding modern society?

Q3: Does letting students choose the books they read foster the motivation necessary to improve their reading comprehension?
Answer: To a certain extent, but in the long run, giving students too much discretion will limit their exposure to challenging texts and necessary content knowledge.
Proponents of the workshop model often claim that letting students choose the books they read will make them more motivated readers, increase the amount of time they spend reading, and improve their literacy.[41] However, embedded within this seemingly plausible theory are at least two assumptions that deserve closer examination: first, that motivation drives achievement, and second, that letting students choose books is the most effective way to motivate them.

Start with the first assumption. Although it's certainly plausible that motivation boosts achievement, it's equally plausible that high achievement is motivating. After all, we tend to enjoy what we're good at (and be frustrated by activities that make us feel incompetent). In fact, there is some evidence for this view, at least in mathematics, where two longitudinal studies have found that achievement in early grades predicted motivation in later grades, but early motivation did not predict subsequent achievement.[42][43] In reading, the research is less conclusive. One study found that the relationship between motivation and self-efficacy was reciprocal.[44] Another study drew the same conclusion but found that self-efficacy had a stronger effect on motivation than vice versa.[45] In other words, there is little evidence that motivation boosts achievement and at least some evidence that achievement boosts motivation.

The second contention, that unfettered choice is the best means to foster motivation, is equally suspect. After all, there are plenty of other mechanisms teachers can employ to improve motivation, from extrinsic motivators such as grades, to the sense of community that comes from shared reading, to connections to students' personal experiences, and to the use of inherently interesting books.[46] Perhaps a shared reading of a classic work with an impassioned teacher, engaged classmates, and thoughtfully designed final projects is more motivating than reading a self-selected book in a lonely corner.

Regardless, many studies that ostensibly interrogate the effect of choice on motivation have designs that preclude sweeping conclusions.[47] For example, in one study about the role of student choice during free-reading time, half of participants got their top-ranked book and the other half their bottom choice.[48] But of course, being assigned a text that you have consciously ranked last is demotivating and differs fundamentally from being asked to read a teacher-selected text about which you haven't expressed a preference. In another study, the reading of self-selected books was accompanied by the renovation of classrooms and libraries, making it impossible to determine the causative factor.[49]

The link between choice and achievement is even weaker than the link between choice and motivation. For example, one study found a positive relationship between students' self-reported choice of books and their scores on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (an international, standardized reading assessment), but the authors could not determine if choice caused reading achievement or if the two were merely correlated.[50] Notably, several studies that have looked at the impact of giving students choice over other instructional tasks, such as which math problems to complete or vocabulary words to learn, have found null to slightly negative effects.[51][52][53]

As these studies suggest, choice is one of several strategies that can increase motivation; however, it is less clear that it improves achievement, and there is reason to suspect that too much choice can be a barrier to progress. Left to his or her own devices, a student may flip through graphic novels or books about football, thus encountering neither the challenge nor the unfamiliar content required for growing knowledge-and, thus, literacy. Furthermore, it should be obvious that teachers can harness the motivational effects of choice without the academic tradeoffs. For example, one small-scale study found that students performed better on end-of-unit tests when given their choice of preapproved homework options.[54]

In short, effective teachers harness the motivational effects of choice by giving students some control over where they sit, how they spend their class time, and which book they read next, but it doesn't follow that reading teachers should give their students carte blanche.

Q4: Does extended literacy instruction enhance reading comprehension?
Answer: Potentially, assuming the additional time is not spent on independent reading. To become strong readers, students need the background knowledge that comes from systematic exposure to history, science, and other subjects.
American elementary students spend more time in English language arts than in any other subject- about twice as much as they spend on math, up to four times as much time as they spend on social studies or science,[55] and upwards of 40 percent of their total class time.[56]

In theory, a strong focus on ELA instruction at the elementary level could be a good thing. Yet in practice, much of the typical literacy block is spent reading independently. This activity has many names-Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), Drop Everything And Read (DEAR), Silent Quiet Uninterrupted Independent Reading Time (SQUIRT)-but regardless of what it is called, it's not clear that it is a good use of class time.

Since 1980, there have been eleven separate meta-analyses on silent reading.[57] A 2002 meta-analysis is emblematic: Effects are positive, according to the authors, but small compared to interventions such as phonics, vocabulary instruction, or repeated readings.[58][59] In 2000, the National Reading Panel concluded that research had "not yet demonstrated" that independent reading benefited students "in a clear and convincing manner." [60] Similarly, a 2021 review found "no meaningful beneficial effects of independent reading on reading outcomes." [61]

The emphasis on silent reading makes sense if you believe that reading comprehension depends on a set of generalizable skills taught in mini lessons that students can then practice independently. Yet anyone with a knowledge-centric understanding of reading comprehension-that content knowledge, not skills, supports understanding-should have concerns. No doubt, independent reading provides some benefit (almost anything is better than nothing), but explicit, teacher-led, content-centered instruction might improve reading comprehension more. A student who spends hours reading "just-right" books of their choosing will not necessarily acquire the knowledge of science, social studies, art, and music that competent readers possess, particularly if he or she is not exposed to these things at home.

Research on the impacts of social studies and science classes supports this intuition. For example, a nationally representative study by Fordham's Adam Tyner and early childhood researcher Sarah Kabourek found that "students who receive an additional thirty minutes of social studies instruction per day . . . outperform[ed] students with less social studies time by 15 percent of a standard deviation on the fifth-grade reading assessment" [62] (notably, effects were particularly strong for girls and students from low-income and non-English-speaking homes).

Several smaller randomized-controlled trials dovetail with Tyner and Kabourek's conclusions. For example, in one study, elementary students who were randomly assigned additional class time that focused on science and social studies content showed improvement in both these subjects and "reading comprehension." [63] Other studies that have focused on the effects of additional science instruction have found similar results.[65][66]

Such research tracks with what we know about reading comprehension. Just about any student could decode the words "Berlin Wall." But to grasp their full import, a student would need a knowledge of basic geography (where is Berlin?), history (why was the Berlin wall built?), and political philosophy (what qualities of the Communist regime caused people to flee from East to West?). More time in social studies and other subjects-and an English class that makes the most of its time-is a plausible way of acquiring such knowledge.

Recommendations

1. Include essential content in state standards in a coordinated way across multiple subjects. 2. Require the adoption and use of knowledge-rich curricula.
Currently, many state standards are little more than a list of vacuous skills. For example, ELA students in Kansas are to "read and comprehend high-quality literary text," but there is no discussion of which texts should be read at what grade level.[67] Given the importance of content knowledge, a better approach would be to specify the movements and literary periods (e.g., classical myths and American slave narratives) that all students in a particular grade level should cover or provide a list of specific texts from which teachers or districts can choose.[68] Ideally,states would also coordinate and thereby reinforce content across multiple subjects-for example, by reading a novel set during the industrial revolution while students learn about that same period in their social studies class.
3. Ensure that state and local accountability systems incentivize the deployment and consumption of knowledge-rich curricula.
Many states now require districts to adopt K-3 curricula that align with the science of reading, but too often these requirements focus exclusively on phonics while neglecting content knowledge. What's more, the dearth of essential content is not necessarily confined to the early grades. In many states, the work of ensuring the quality of curriculum falls to districts. Still, nineteen states and the District of Columbia already prescribe textbooks at the state level, and those same agencies could theoretically approve curricula that promote a knowledge-centric understanding of reading comprehension.[69] In the states where districts choose their curricular materials, the Knowledge Matters Campaign has begun reviewing and approving knowledge-rich curricula to provide much-needed guidance to both state and local education agencies.

Although they are often accused of narrowing the curriculum, standardized tests could be part of the solution. For example, there is no law that prevents states from embedding essential content in ELA tests-second-grade tests could include passages about ancient civilizations, for example-to incentivize ELA teachers to cover certain topics. And, in fact, Louisiana has partnered with Great Minds, NWEA, and other organizations to develop and pilot such tests.[70]
4. Emphasize the importance of knowledge building in teacher preparation and development.
Alternatively, separate standardized tests in other subjects could directly measure historical, civic, and scientific knowledge. For example, most states already test elementary and/or middle school students in science, and about a dozen test them in social studies.[71][72] Ideally, every state would do so.

Many states now require that teachers learn the "science of reading" in both university teacher prep programs and district-level teacher professional development. Yet if such requirements focus solely on phonics and phonemic awareness, they'll fail to teach educators the full account of how children learn to read and comprehend.[73] Moving forward, such mandates must include a cogent account of the importance of knowledge to reading comprehension, and those charged with preparing in-service educators must teach them accordingly.

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

This report was made possible through the generous support of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. I am grateful to Timothy Shanahan for his external review, helpful feedback, and guidance on a draft of the report. I also extend my gratitude to Pamela Tatz for copyediting. At Fordham, I would like to thank David Griffith specifically for his ongoing direction, editing, and supervision of this project, as well as Adam Tyner, Amber M. Northern, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Michael J. Petrilli for reviewing drafts; Victoria McDougald for her role in dissemination; and Stephanie Distler for developing the report's cover and coordinating production.

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Think Again: Should Elementary Schools Teach Reading Comprehension?

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Reading comprehension depends on the acquisition of decoding, vocabulary, and knowledge, not "comprehension skills" as such. Yet the instructional practices and curricula that are the foundation for many English classrooms assume otherwise.

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The Usefulness of Semantic Maps in Navigating Knowledge - TextProject

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One learning technique has proven effective in supporting students in organizing and remembering knowledge: semantic maps. Whether the technique is called a semantic, concept, or mind map, the distinguishing feature is that words, phrases, or sentences that represent concepts are presented in a diagram-like scheme.

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How Building Knowledge Boosts Literacy and Learning

First causal study finds outsized impacts at "Core Knowledge" schools

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Copyright © 2024 President & Fellows of Harvard College

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David Grissmer, Richard Buddin, Mark Berends, Thomas G. White, Daniel T. Willingham, Jamie DeCoster, Chelsea A.K. Duran, Chris S. Hulleman, William M. Murrah, Tanya Evans

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How Building Knowledge Boosts Literacy and Learning

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First causal study finds outsized impacts at "Core Knowledge" schools

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Ways to Build Literacy Knowledge through Read Alouds

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Ways to Build Literacy Knowledge through Read Alouds

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Ways to Build Literacy Knoledge through Read Alouds

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The research is clear: Reading-comprehension strategies help students understand texts better. But they are only the first step.

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https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2024-2025/catts_kamhi?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0W6-iwHHA7TxlI9Ci697GPo6C51nvZhSCtqDVhXO5w6C9L5VirE8y0B4U_aem_SD_lIPwO8BemT92w0yNZMw

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Special episode: Unlocking reading: Comprehension strategies vs. knowledge building, with Daniel Willingham, Ph.D.

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Hear Daniel Willingham discuss the research behind developing reading skills via reading comprehension strategies vs. knowledge building.

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It is February 2015, and I am at a national conference listening to a panel present the results of their research on improving reading comprehension. Several members of the panel, like myself and a few others in the room, are funded by the Institute of Education Sciences as part of the Reading for Understanding Initiative. This $120 million program supported six interconnected research teams in their efforts to improve reading achievement in the United States. ¹ Educators and policymakers had for some time been concerned about the performance of American children on tests of reading achievement. Over the last 20 years, only about a third of students have scored at the proficient level on the reading subtest of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). ² This assessment is administered biennially to a representative sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students (and every four years to 12th-graders) from across the nation. Somewhat better, though still troubling, levels of performance have also been reported on state-based reading tests, administered annually starting in third grade. The Reading for Understanding Initiative was intended to jump-start instruction in reading comprehension and significantly improve reading achievement on state and national assessments. In fact, it was described by program officials as the "moonshot" for reading comprehension.

Unfortunately, the preliminary results that the panel presented fell short of these expectations. The reported studies found that students receiving a variety of comprehension interventions made gains, compared with control groups, on assessments closely tied to the interventions-but they showed limited or no significant gains on standardized measures of reading comprehension. Needless to say, conference attendees were surprised and discouraged by these results.

Sitting in the back of the room, I clearly remember not being particularly alarmed by what the panel reported. As part of my work on the Reading for Understanding Initiative and earlier related projects, I had spent many hours thinking, studying, and talking with teachers and colleagues about reading comprehension. Through these efforts, I had come to recognize that the field's general approach to reading comprehension was shortsighted. We were treating reading comprehension as if it were a single construct that could be measured with one or more general reading tests and improved with a short-term intervention. At a deeper conceptual level, most researchers (including those funded by the Reading for Understanding Initiative) recognized that reading comprehension was multidimensional, but it had been common practice in education and research for some time to study, assess, and provide instruction as if comprehension were a skill, rather like swimming. If we teach someone to swim, they can soon transfer that skill to any body of water, whether it be a pool, lake, or ocean. But reading comprehension is not a skill someone learns and can then apply in different reading contexts. It is one of the most complex activities that we engage in on a regular basis, and our ability to comprehend is dependent upon a wide range of knowledge and skills.

The Comprehension as Skill Myth

How have we come to think of comprehension as a skill? I believe a major reason this has occurred is because we have talked and written about comprehension in the context of related skill-like abilities. Discussions about reading often include the topics of phonics, fluency, and related skills, such as phonemic awareness, together with comprehension. As an example, take the work of the National Reading Panel. ³ This panel of reading experts was convened by Congress to assess the effectiveness of different approaches to teaching reading. They examined a wide range of instructional approaches related to comprehension, but in overviews of their work, comprehension has been reduced to one of the "Big Five," along with phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and vocabulary. As such, it is depicted alongside these skills as one of the "pillars" of reading. In another common graphic, the word comprehension is displayed within a box similar in design (actually smaller) to boxes for other skill-like components of reading. Whereas such a consideration and depiction are thought to form a useful heuristic, it can give the false impression that comprehension is comparable to these skills in terms of its complexity and the way it is best taught and measured.

Furthermore, widely used approaches to teaching reading comprehension reinforce this view. ⁴ Comprehension has typically been taught through the use of strategies such as "find the main idea," "make a prediction," or "monitor your comprehension." These strategies are taught and practiced in order to gain automaticity, much like what is done with other skill-like behaviors. This, in turn, can lead us to believe that comprehension can be thought of in a similar manner to these other skills.

A More Accurate and Complex Model

Despite this common view about comprehension, several lines of enquiry have recognized the true complexity of reading comprehension for some time. Nearly 20 years ago, this complexity was captured by the RAND Reading Study Group. ⁵ This federally funded group was charged with developing a research agenda to address pressing issues in literacy. As part of their 2002 report, they conceptualized reading comprehension as a combination of factors within three different categories: the reader, the text, and the activity of reading.

The reader brings a set of cognitive abilities (such as attention, memory, and reasoning), language knowledge and skills, motivations and interests, and background knowledge to the task of reading. Readers vary considerably in these factors, and this variability impacts their comprehension. Considerable research attention has been focused on reader variables, and their impact on comprehension is well documented.

The text includes such elements as genre, topic, and complexity. Students encounter texts with different genres-such as narrative, descriptive, expository, or persuasive-and these texts vary in their subject matter and level of complexity. Although not emphasized in the RAND report from 2002, texts also now vary in their form. They may be in a paper or digital form, and the latter can be displayed on a variety of devices, such as a phone, tablet, or computer. Each of these forms imposes its own set of constraints and challenges on comprehension. The notion of multiple texts can also be added to this category to account for the fact that skilled readers often rely on more than one text for comprehension.

The activity refers to the task or purpose of reading. It is often argued that the purpose of reading is comprehension. But we actually seek to comprehend for a specific reason, be it to prepare for a test, evaluate the strengths of an argument, learn the rules of a game, or enjoy a magazine article or book. Each purpose brings unique knowledge and skills that must be acquired to be successful.

Importantly, the RAND Reading Study Group viewed these various elements interacting within a sociocultural context that involves factors such as where the reading occurs (e.g., school or home), how much support there is (e.g., individual, teacher- or caregiver-led, or group activity), and what cultural value is placed on reading by students' families, peers, racial and ethnic groups, and other groups that are central to the students' identities.

Taken together, it is easy to see how any one individual may have multiple levels of comprehension ability depending upon what they are reading and why they are reading it. As a result, comprehension cannot be reduced to a single notion because it is not a single ability.

The Role of Knowledge

Chief among the factors influencing reading comprehension is background knowledge. Research clearly shows that how much readers understand about the text's topic before they read it is a major factor in how much they understand while and after they read it. ⁶ Unfortunately, much of the efforts directed toward improving reading comprehension have neglected building background knowledge. (As discussed later, there are widely used strategies for "activating" background knowledge, but they do not necessarily develop new knowledge.) It was this neglect that first alerted me to the problems with the way we were thinking about reading comprehension.

In my graduate training, many years ago, I was introduced to the role of knowledge in reading comprehension. At that time, schema theory was a popular topic in research on human cognition and learning. A schema is an organized unit of knowledge that forms the foundation for many activities involving human thought. Richard Anderson, a professor of educational psychology, brought the notion of a schema to education and argued for its critical role in reading comprehension as well as learning in general. ⁷ He was among the first to convey to me the importance of teaching knowledge to improve comprehension.

In my psychology classes, I was introduced to a study that continues to be one of my favorites. The following passage, which was designed to be ambiguous, was read aloud to college students, and they were asked to recall as much as they could.

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. ⁸

Students given the topic of the passage beforehand quickly made sense of what they heard and recalled many details. (Those students were told, "The paragraph you will hear will be about washing clothes.") But those who heard the same passage without the topic were confused and recalled little. Of particular interest, a third group of students was given the topic after they heard the passage, but they too were confused and recalled little. Of course, it was not simply the topic but rather the knowledge associated with it that allowed the students to make sense of what they had heard-but only if this knowledge was available from the start.

It was studies like this, including similar ones involving reading rather than listening, that early on clearly demonstrated for me the importance of knowledge for comprehension. But somewhere along the line, educators and researchers-myself included-got distracted and failed to pay attention to its importance. It is not exactly clear how this happened. Perhaps it was a shift in focus to bottom-up models of reading that argued that meaning was contained within the text and that the reader's job was to extract it. Or maybe it was just that knowledge took too much time to teach, and it made more sense to focus on skills that could be taught quickly and applied across topics. Also, considering comprehension alongside skill-like aspects of reading probably distracted us from the role of knowledge.

But whatever the reason, knowledge has come back to the forefront in discussions of reading comprehension. Proponents such as E. D. Hirsch Jr., Daniel T. Willingham, and Natalie Wexler have written extensively about the role of knowledge in comprehension.* Their work and that of others ⁹ has begun to have an influence on research in reading comprehension, but change has been slow. Some of the projects in the Reading for Understanding Initiative did have knowledge as a central component, but the other projects paid only limited attention to knowledge in instruction and/or assessment. Limited attention also plagued other large-scale projects, such as those within the Striving Readers program. This program funded by the US Department of Education involved a set of 17 studies designed to improve reading comprehension in middle and high school students. ¹⁰ While materials did address different topics, there was no direct effort to build knowledge as part of the intervention or assessment. Again, it is not surprising that these studies only demonstrated small effects at best on improving reading comprehension.

What Knowledge Does for Comprehension

Why is knowledge so critical for comprehension? To begin with, it provides a framework for organizing incoming information and guides us as we read through a text. We better understand what the topic is and have expectations about where a passage may be going. By doing so, knowledge keeps us on track and prevents us from going down "blind alleys" in our understanding. This framework also gives us a place to anchor new information in memory and associate it with past knowledge. We use these building blocks of the new and the old to construct an initial understanding of what we are reading and then continuously revise and add to it as we move through a text. It is this integration of the new information in the text with what we already know that brings meaning to what we read.

Background knowledge also allows us to make inferences and fill in information that is not explicitly provided. Authors rarely tell us all we need to know in order to understand a text, so we need to fill in some of the details with our background knowledge. Knowledge also enables us to more easily recognize which of the multiple meanings of a word is appropriate for the context. For example, when reading a passage about baseball, knowing that the word pitcher refers to a person rather than an object could be critical for comprehension.

Knowledge is also essential for thinking. But in certain contexts these days, it is seen as secondary to thinking. Critical thinking has become the rage in education. All too often, teachers are urged to engage students in thinking deeply and critically about what they read as if these skills were independent of the topic; meanwhile, background knowledge is downplayed as if the specific information about a topic could be looked up on the internet when necessary. ¹¹ But it is the specific information that gives students something to think critically about-and our minds are surprisingly limited in how much new information they can take in at one time. Knowledge must accumulate over time to ensure a level of depth that allows for a critical analysis of the subject matter. We can't think logically about different approaches to government without knowing a lot about different forms of government. So, in this sense, knowledge is the most critical component of critical thinking.

Knowledge also allows us to make the most use of our working memory, where much of thinking takes place. There are limitations on how much information we can hold and think about simultaneously in working memory, and this amount is heavily influenced by knowledge. Knowledge coming from long-term memory places a much smaller burden on working memory than new knowledge coming from a text (or a speaker); it also leaves us with more capacity in working memory to think about things in novel ways. As a simple example, it is easier to remember the letter sequences USA, FBI, and NBC than PDQ, RJB, and FVO. When reading, the more information related to the topic we already have stored in long-term memory, the more deeply we can think about that topic-even as we read a passage that offers new information.

Finally, the relationship between knowledge and reading comprehension is reciprocal in nature. Not only does knowledge improve comprehension, but comprehension allows the reader to build new knowledge. Creating a coherent understanding of what one reads modifies the background knowledge that is available for subsequent reading comprehension either later in the same text or in future reading of related texts. ¹²

Implications for Instruction

It should be evident from my comments that improving reading comprehension is a complex process that requires multiple levels of instruction and practice. Clearly, building background knowledge that is both deep and broad is needed to lay the foundation for comprehension and for further knowledge acquisition. However, students also need high-quality reading instruction involving decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies in order to best use their knowledge in different reading contexts and for different purposes.

For many years, the primary way knowledge has been addressed in the context of reading has been through activating background knowledge using strategies like prereading discussions, concept maps, and anticipation guides. These strategies can be effective-but they only work when the appropriate knowledge is available. Often, children will not have the requisite knowledge, or their knowledge will be impoverished or inaccurate. If inaccurate, this activation can actually be detrimental to comprehension.

Whereas knowledge activation has been widely viewed as a component of reading instruction, building knowledge often has not. In fact, instruction devoted to content knowledge has actually been replaced by other aspects of reading instruction. In most elementary schools, social studies and science instruction has been supplanted by English language arts (ELA) instruction. Surveys have shown that, on average, children in grades 1-4 receive only 2.3 hours of science instruction per week, whereas four times that amount is spent on ELA instruction teaching word-reading skills, comprehension strategies, and vocabulary. ¹³ The thinking has been that if we want children to improve their reading comprehension, we have to work on reading skills to achieve fluency before we can use reading to build knowledge. However, this false dichotomy between learning to read and reading to learn has not led to better reading achievement.

Recently, educators have begun to rethink reading instruction and consider how to better integrate knowledge acquisition with literacy in ELA instruction. ¹⁴ In these more integrated approaches, students build knowledge at the same time they are learning reading-related skills. This involves a concentrated effort to build rich and connected ideas about social studies, science, and other subjects during ELA lessons. Such instruction does not necessarily replace the science and social studies instruction that may be taking place at other times but rather supplements it. As with other content instruction, reading materials in an integrated ELA program are selected to build knowledge. Instead of reading, for example, about volcanoes one day and Rosa Parks the next, which has often been the case in ELA instruction, reading materials are arranged by topic in a logical and sequential manner and form an integrated, content-rich curriculum. In this way, knowledge is acquired and accumulated over time.

Such content-rich, connected instruction can be especially engaging and can draw children's interests to literacy and learning. Student engagement and learning can be further fostered by culturally responsive instruction. One example is a program called Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering. ¹⁵ This program takes a home-to-school approach to connect new knowledge with culturally relevant knowledge concerning the people, places, and objects that students interact with on a daily basis. By understanding, appreciating, and connecting with this knowledge, learning can be especially enhanced for all children.

In an integrated literacy and knowledge-building curriculum, there should be a strong focus on teaching fundamental reading skills. Depending on the grade and specific skills taught, instruction in decoding, spelling, and fluency could comprise its own unit or be blended with discussion and activities designed to acquire and build content-area knowledge. Vocabulary, an important focus of ELA instruction, can be taught especially well within a content-rich, integrated curriculum. Novel words related to the content are excellent targets for instruction. These words are often repeated multiple times in a text, and their meanings are well supported by the context in which they occur. In addition, once learned, they become part of the knowledge base of the topic. General-purpose academic words, or what are sometimes referred to as Tier 2 words, also are learned more easily in a rich context. When these words are supported by content knowledge, the reader can use this knowledge to more easily infer their meaning. Also, a rich context can prove particularly helpful in learning words with multiple meanings, such as "bright" or "palm." ¹⁶

Content-rich materials are also excellent contexts in which to learn more about academic language. Written language is characterized by more complex grammar than spoken language, and students can benefit from explicit instruction in how this grammar works. Specifically, science texts tend to privilege nouns for compacting information, developing logical reasoning, and achieving precision. ¹⁷ For example, consider this text: "Asthma is a disorder in which the respiratory passages narrow significantly as a result of an allergen. This narrowing...." Here the author creates an abstract noun (i.e., "this narrowing") to represent the entire previous clause. Recognizing the referent of this abstract noun is critical to comprehension and, in cases like this, could benefit from explicit instruction. In other academic texts, students will be confronted with complex and elaborated noun phrases, rather than reduced ones, as well as challenging noun, adverbial, and adjectival clauses. For example, social studies texts use "noun clauses (e.g., 'Jefferson's next argument was that King George III had violated the colonists' rights by passing unfair laws and interfering with colonial governments'), adverbial clauses (e.g., 'Even before Washington reached Boston, the Patriots took action'), and adjectival clauses (e.g., 'He was influenced by the Enlightenment idea of the social contract, which states that governments and rulers must protect the rights of citizens') to pack a large amount of information." ¹⁸ Given this complexity, explicit instruction in how to unpack academic grammar could prove helpful to students in understanding informational texts.

Integrated approaches also can incorporate many of the same comprehension strategies employed in traditional ELA instruction. Some of these strategies, like inferencing and paraphrasing, are rather general and can be explicitly taught and used across various contexts. However, within an integrated approach, some strategies are best selected and taught based on their relevance to what is being read and for what purpose. The nature of texts and purposes for reading vary across subject matters, and thus, the strategies that may be most advantageous will vary as well.

Some of these strategies will be the common ones (e.g., mental imagery) identified by the National Reading Panel. Others will be more text- and task-specific metacognitive approaches to assist comprehension. For example, during a social studies lesson, students may be presented with an explanation or argument and asked to evaluate its validity. In such a case, students would benefit from explicit instruction and practice on how to identify a claim and judge the relevance, sufficiency, and accuracy of the evidence provided. Alternatively, science texts often provide a description of some object, animal, or process, and students are often tested on what they have learned from their reading. For such a task, students may benefit from being taught how to use a graphic organizer to summarize and categorize the information within different organizational structures. Students will also benefit from recognizing that a science text (from a trustworthy source) is an authoritative account and is different from texts in which the author's perspective is central, such as a poem or a historical figure's diary entry. This more nuanced approach to strategies becomes ever more important as students move through the grades and the comprehension skills needed are increasingly determined by the characteristics of the text and the activities carried out within the different disciplines. Nevertheless, knowledge of how disciplinary texts work, or what is called disciplinary literacy, can and should be part of instruction in the elementary grades. ¹⁹

There are now quite a few integrated, content-rich curricula being used across the country. Some of these programs are commercially available through curriculum publishers, such as Core Knowledge Language Arts and Wit & Wisdom, whereas others have been developed by researchers, such as Model of Reading Engagement. ²⁰ Some of these programs have been developed specifically to be used as part of ELA instruction. Others are truly integrated across the curriculum and operate instead of or in addition to ELA materials. There is also quite a bit of variability in the scope of literacy instruction within these programs. Nevertheless, a recent meta-analysis showed that when compared with traditional programs in which literacy and content instruction were provided separately, integrated, content-rich programs resulted in students scoring significantly better on vocabulary and comprehension (including on standardized measures of comprehension). Not surprisingly, significant gains were also made in the content taught. ²¹

Implications for Assessment

The multidimensional nature of reading comprehension presents a significant challenge for assessment. Because of the numerous factors in play, a reader's comprehension ability is more fluid than often thought. In other words, any one individual will have different levels of ability depending on what is read and for what purpose.

Perhaps the best demonstration of this variability and its impact on assessment comes from a study that included scores from 995 children who were administered four different standardized measures of reading comprehension. ²² The researchers found that the median correlation between the different tests was only .54, which was surprisingly low given that the tests purported to measure the same thing. In another analysis of the data, they identified children scoring in the lowest 10th percentile on each of the measures and compared the overlap of these groups across measures. Their results showed that, on average, only 43 percent of the children identified by one test as poor readers were also identified as poor readers on another test. In other words, the odds of any two tests diagnosing the same student as having a comprehension deficit were less than half. Further analyses showed that it was not just a problem of consistency at the lower end of the scale; there was just as much inconsistency in identifying children performing in the highest 10th percentile.

The inconsistency in the results of the different measures of reading comprehension was likely due in part to the poor reliability of these measures, something that is not uncommon for diagnostic measures of reading comprehension. On the other hand, the measures also differed in their formats, so that could have contributed to the variability. One measure employed a cloze task in which children read passages and filled in missing words. In the others, children read either passages or single sentences and then answered open-ended or multiple-choice questions. These formats are known to place different demands on reading-related processes, such as word reading, language ability, and working memory. ²³ Thus, children with different strengths and weaknesses in these processes would be expected to perform differently on the measures.

The content of the passages/sentences may also have added to the variability of the measures. That is, children were likely to have varied in their knowledge about the topics covered, and that could have influenced their performance. Such variability may be present not only across tests but also across passages within a test. For example, in the Reading for Understanding project that my colleagues and I carried out, students read four different passages from an informal reading inventory and answered open-ended questions. We observed considerable variability within students from one passage to another. It was not uncommon for a student to get nearly all the questions correct on one passage and most wrong on another. Whereas there may be several reasons for this variability, differences in background knowledge is a likely contributor.

Because of the variability due to passages, state- and national-level tests of reading use numerous passages that cover multiple topics. But, of course, this introduces the problem of these tests favoring students who have more knowledge about a broad range of topics than those with less knowledge. This has led E. D. Hirsch Jr. to argue that reading tests are actually knowledge tests in disguise. ²⁴

The fact that state and national reading tests are knowledge heavy introduces a further problem: performance on these tests will likely be more difficult to change in the short term, since knowledge acquisition is incremental in nature. Indeed, as I stated at the outset, American children's performance on NAEP has remained virtually unchanged for some time. This has been in spite of significant federal, state, and local efforts. For example, in North Carolina, the percentage of students failing to reach proficiency on state reading tests has remained largely unchanged, hovering above 50 percent, since 2013-14, when the state passed its K-3 Read to Achieve literacy act. ²⁵

Maybe the problem is not only the instructional practices teachers have been encouraged to use but also the way we are assessing comprehension. An alternative approach would be to teach children using an integrated literacy and content-rich curriculum and to test their ability to read and comprehend passages covered in that curriculum. In other words, offer a better match between instruction and assessment. Don't just test the skills and strategies that have been taught; test the specific content-area topics that have been taught. Such an approach would be fairer and more equitable for all involved. Teachers would have a clear idea of what content within which to imbed their literacy instruction. Students would have the opportunity to learn from content-rich curricula and be assessed based on what they learned in school (instead of what they may or may not have learned at home, over the summer, etc.). Also, because instruction would be better matched with assessment, there would be a greater opportunity for schools and districts to evaluate the progress they are making.

One approach that has attempted to better match instruction with assessment is being carried out within the guidelines of the Every Student Succeeds Act assessment pilot program. ²⁶ This program encourages local involvement in the development of the next generation of assessments. It allows states, with approval by the US Department of Education, to pilot new and innovative assessments in lieu of current state exams. Initially, this takes place in a small number of districts before moving on to statewide implementation. As of October 2021, five states have received approval to develop these assessments. Most notable, Louisiana has begun a multiyear process to offer a humanities assessment as an alternative to its English language arts and social studies assessments. ²⁷ The new humanities assessment draws from texts and topics that are included in the state's recommended curriculum. ²⁸ Thus, the content of the test is likely to be well matched with the instruction students receive.

A very limited pilot of this new assessment, LEAP 2025 Humanities, began in the 2018-19 school year, and then implementation was interrupted by the pandemic, ²⁹ so it will likely be several more years before researchers can evaluate the impact of this new approach. Of course, designing an assessment that is in keeping with current research on literacy development is just the first step. The extent to which the assessment will help enhance instructional practices depends on many related components, including meaningful professional development on how to use the results to inform teaching; time (appropriately allocated and compensated) for teachers to learn collaboratively as they adjust to the new assessment; genuine opportunities for all teachers to have a voice in providing feedback on the curriculum and assessment; and lower stakes tied to the assessment results such that teachers are not afraid to be innovative. In fact, one of the findings of the Reading for Understanding Initiative was that "a major roadblock to teacher uptake of new practices is the accountability infrastructure of reform movements. The more test scores matter, the less the likelihood that teachers will adopt novel teaching practices." ³⁰

Still, I am especially encouraged by Louisiana's efforts and am hopeful that other states and districts will also consider how to better align what is tested with what is taught. It is these types of programs, combined with integrated literacy and content-rich curricula, that I believe can better address comprehension. These programs move beyond characterizing comprehension as simply one of the "Big Five" and recognize its complexity and what it will take to help all children understand and learn from what they read. I look forward to attending future conferences where the results of these programs are presented.
Hugh W. Catts is a professor in the Florida State University School of Communication Science and Disorders and is affiliated with the Florida Center for Reading Research. The author of dozens of peer-reviewed articles and editor of several books, Catts has been engaged in research on language and literacy development for over four decades. Much of his work focuses on early identification and prevention of language-based reading disabilities and on reading comprehension assessment and intervention.
*For articles by Hirsch, Willingham, and Wexler on the importance of building knowledge, see the "Reading" section of American Educator's subject index. ( return to article)

Endnotes

1. P. Pearson et al., eds., Reaping the Rewards of the Reading for Understanding Initiative (Washington, DC: National Academy of Education, 2020), naeducation.org/reaping-the-rewards-of-reading-for-understanding-initiative.
2. National Assessment of Educational Progress, "National Achievement-Level Results," Grade 4, Nation's Report Card, 2019, nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=4.
3. National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction (Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child and Human Development, 2000).
4. D. T. Willingham and G. Lovette, "Can Reading Comprehension Be Taught," Teachers College Record (September 2014).
5. C. Snow, Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002).
6. G. N. Cervetti and T. S. Wright, "The Role of Knowledge in Understanding and Learning from Text," in Handbook of Reading Research, ed. E. B. Moje et al. (Taylor and Francis Group, 2020).
7. R. Anderson, "Schema-Directed Processes in Language Comprehension," in Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, ed. A. Lesgold et al. (New York: Plenum, 1978).
8. J. Bransford and M. Johnson, "Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigation of Comprehension and Recall," Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11 (1972): 722.
9. For a review written by one of these pioneers, who in turn describes several others, see S. Neuman, "The Role of Knowledge in Early Literacy," Reading Research Quarterly 36, no. 4 (November 2011): 468-75.
10. B. Boulay et al., Summary of Research Generated by Striving Readers on the Effectiveness of Interventions for Struggling Adolescent Readers, NCEE-2016-4001 (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, October 2015).
11. For a paper that addresses many of the widespread misconceptions about critical thinking, see D. T. Willingham, "How to Teach Critical Thinking," commissioned paper, Education: Future Frontiers (May 2019).
12. Pearson et al., Reaping the Rewards.
13. R. K. Blank, "What Is the Impact of Decline in Science Instructional Time in Elementary School?: Time for Elementary Instruction Has Declined, and Less Time for Science Is Correlated with Lower Scores on NAEP," prepared for the Noyce Foundation, 2012.
14. See, for example, the Knowledge Matters Campaign, knowledgematterscampaign.org, and Curriculum Matters, curriculummatters.org.
15. C. McWayne et al., "Incorporating Knowledge from Children's Homes and Communities," Young Children 75, no. 5 (December 2020): 20-26.
16. J. Gustafson, "Robust Vocabulary Instruction: Bringing Knowledge-Rich Curricula to Life," Achieve the Core, September 30, 2019.
17. Z. Fang, "Scientific Literacy: A Systematic Functional Linguistics Perspective," Science Education 89, no. 2 (March 2005): 335-47.
18. Y. Zhang, "Supporting English Language Learners in Social Studies: Language-Focused Strategies," Social Studies 108 (2017): 2.
19. C. Shanahan and T. Shanahan, "Does Disciplinary Literacy Have a Place in Elementary School?," The Reading Teacher 67, no. 8 (2014): 636-39.
20. J. Kim et al., "Improving Reading Comprehension, Science Domain Knowledge, and Reading Engagement Through a First-Grade Content Literacy Intervention," Journal of Educational Psychology 113, no. 1 (2021): 3-26.
21. H. Hwang, S. Cabell, and R. Joyner, "Does Cultivating Content Knowledge During Literacy Instruction Support Vocabulary and Comprehension in the Elementary School Years?: A Systematic Review," Reading Psychology, manuscript under review.
22. J. Keenan and C. Meenan, "Test Differences in Diagnosing Reading Comprehension Deficits," Journal of Learning Disabilities 47, no. 2 (2014): 125-35.
23. J. Keenan, R. Betjemann, and R. Olson, "Reading Comprehension Tests Vary in the Skills They Assess: Differential Dependence on Decoding and Oral Language," Scientific Studies in Reading 12, no. 3 (2008): 281-300.
24. E. D. Hirsch Jr., Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
25. S. Koon, B. Foorman, and T. Galloway, "Identifying North Carolina Students at Risk of Scoring Below Proficient in Reading at the End of Grade 3," REL 2020-030 (Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, August 2020).
26. Every Student Succeeds Act, Pub. L. No. 114-95 (2015).
27. For the state's documents on the assessment, see "LEAP 2025 Humanities," Assessments, Louisiana Department of Education, louisianabelieves.com/resources/library/assessment.
28. Louisiana Believes, "Louisiana's Innovative Assessment Pilot National Update," Louisiana Department of Education, August 15, 2019.
29. Louisiana Believes, "Parent Guide to the LEAP 2025 Humanities Student Reports," Louisiana Department of Education, louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/assessment/parent-guide-to-leap-2025-humanities.pdf; and N. Munyan-Penney and C. Barone, "Innovative Assessment Pilot: Louisiana's LEAP 2025 Humanities Assessment," Education Reform Now, November 2020, edreformnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Louisiana-IADA-LEAP-2025-Humanities.pdf.
30. Pearson et al., Reaping the Rewards, 5.

[Illustrations by Jessie Lin]

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Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension

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It is February 2015, and I am at a national conference listening to a panel present the results of their research on improving reading comprehension. Several members of the panel, like myself and a few others in the room, are funded by the Institute of Education Sciences as part of the Reading for Understanding Initiative.

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"In a fit of anger, Moses smashed the tablet against the ground."

A group of young students reading that sentence will come to different conclusions. Depending on how familiar they are with the Bible, some may recognize it as a parable. Others may reel at the thought of an expensive electronic device being destroyed in a fit of pique. For linguistics and literacy researchers Carsten Elbro and Ida Buch-Iversen, coauthors of a landmark 2013 study on background knowledge, the difference between the two interpretations has little to do with a student's reading comprehension skills.

Students who properly decode the words and understand the basic structure of a text may still come up short in measures of comprehension because they fail "to activate relevant, existing background knowledge," Elbro and Buch-Iversen explain in the study. That's because students constantly make inferences and seek connections to their lives to make sense of what they're reading-understanding what Moses was actually doing depends more on whether you were raised as a Christian than on your ability to grasp the sentence's literal meaning.

In their study, Elbro and Buch-Iversen separated 236 sixth-grade students into two groups. One group of students used concept maps to connect related ideas-an exercise that helped them build a lattice of intertwined knowledge across subjects like biology, technology, sociology, and history. The second group participated in business-as-usual instruction centered around reading strategies such as summarizing and making predictions. After eight 30-minute sessions, the background knowledge students scored twice as high on tests of general reading comprehension, compared with their peers, with sizable improvements across fiction and nonfiction texts.

A decade later, new research-this time encompassing more than 10 times the number of students-confirms those findings. A groundbreaking Harvard study published last year investigated the benefits of a 10-week, knowledge-rich approach to building reading comprehension in elementary students. Instead of emphasizing traditional skills like identifying the main idea or citing evidence from the text, the researchers asked the youngsters to read widely on a topic in order to develop "generalized schemas that can be accessed and deployed when new, but related, topics are encountered." Students read about dinosaurs, for example, and thus build a deeper understanding of how scientists collect data to study past events. Those students scored 18 percent higher on later, science-related reading comprehension tests, compared with their peers.

Here are six prereading activities to help students build background knowledge and fill in conceptual gaps before tackling new texts.

1. Sustained inquiry. "When I started looking into what's called the achievement gap in education, I was told that the problem was high school," Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap, told Edutopia in 2022. "But the problems that become really obvious in high school, for the most part, have their roots in the way we teach elementary school." In successful elementary schools, Wexler noticed that English language arts (ELA) lessons often looked like they belonged in science classrooms-in one example, fourth graders studied detailed anatomical diagrams in ELA and learned words like cardio and circulatory. By committing content knowledge to long-term memory, these students were able to continue exploring the topics while devoting more working memory to comprehension, Wexler discovered.

Wexler's observations align with what experts recommend: a sustained, thoughtfully sequenced, content-oriented approach to building strong reading skills. When planning for the academic year, "consider the topics to be covered for the year and then ask yourself, 'How can we integrate instruction around a coherent schema?'" suggest James Kim and Mary Burkhauser, who led the Harvard study on background knowledge. Instead of covering one topic and then moving on to something unrelated, look for ways to tie broader themes together, and revisit and reinforce them often: "Consider larger schema (the trees) that connect the topics (branches) you are expected to cover."

If students are going to read about Roman emperors, for example, you can prepare them by exploring and reading widely across related, universal themes like civilization-building, governance, and codes of law, helping to build a rich foundation of vocabulary and thematic knowledge that students can access as they read future texts that touch upon the same concepts.

2. Vocabulary games. In a 2019 study, students who were familiar with less than 59 percent of core terms in a topic struggled to understand the reading material. But quickly memorizing new terms in isolation won't result in lasting recall.

Consider spending more time on vocabulary acquisition, be multimodal, and make connections to other learning, writes Rebecca Alber, an instructor at UCLA's Teacher Education Program. She recommends using photos to introduce new words to kids or connecting the words to things they're familiar with, are interested in, or have learned before. Students can also draw the words or work in small groups to talk about them. The dictionaries shouldn't come out until students have worked hard to discover the definitions on their own, Alber suggests. As the list of foundational vocabulary grows over the course of the year, try word sorts-grouping words with related meaning together-or pick five terms from the course and ask students to chat quickly about how they are interrelated before they each write a quick paragraph linking the terms.

Instructional coach Hannah Bradley builds engagement by playing word games-an approach that works across subjects and age groups. "In my experience, the lighthearted nature of these games provides students with a fun, safe, and low-stakes environment where they feel more confident to just have a go," she writes. A great starter activity is From A to Z, a five-to-eight-minute game in which students work in small groups to brainstorm words related to a topic being studied for every letter of the alphabet. Word-association games like Just One or Telephone Pictionary can help students see how concepts are interrelated, building a more robust network of interrelated ideas.

3. Station rotation. Before jumping into a new lesson, you can set up several tables with related reading materials-comics, photo collections, poetry, introductory videos, or news articles, for example-to give students multiple entry points while building familiarity with key events and people, says high school social studies teacher Tim Smyth. When Smyth starts a unit on World War II, he sets up seven tables, each with a central theme-Holocaust, leading women, and key battles, for example-which students dig into while taking notes. They also answer reflection questions such as, "Describe one image you saw that jumped out at you. Why did you choose this one?" or "What are three questions you have/want to know more about?"

"As we delved more deeply into World War II content in the weeks following book study, students made powerful connections between new content and the texts they explored at the start of the unit," writes Smyth. "And they were better able to retain the information and see the bigger picture by referring back to the texts they explored."

For topics that students learn at a younger age, you can use materials they're already familiar with-using clippings from National Geographic to explore different ecosystems, for example, or short YouTube videos that delve into an interesting topic like how cavities form or what germs are-to build engagement and introduce complex ideas. Graphic novels can be used to introduce challenging concepts, says middle and high school teacher Jason DeHart, while excerpts from your students' favorite sci-fi or historical fiction novels can be entry points to reading more complex texts. By starting with materials that students are already familiar with, you're helping students make connections to new ideas that may otherwise be elusive.

4. Hexagonal thinking. An engaging pre-lesson activity that doubles as a way to refresh what students have learned and help them make new connections, hexagonal thinking uses cut-out hexagons-each covering a single term or concept-to explore novel insights. Working in small groups, students first create or are given a list of key ideas, which are then written on separate hexagons made digitally or from paper, card stock, or sticky notes. Students then connect the hexagons, linking related ideas together. For example, if students are learning about animal habitats, they can arrange animals by biome (forest, plains, desert) and investigate similarities and differences. Each group may have a completely different configuration of hexagons, providing fodder for a creative discussion.
Courtesy of Betsy Potash / Cult of Pedagogy
5. Tools to map the conceptual terrain. If you've ever jumped into a book (or television) series midway, you know that it can be disorienting. That's because a good story relies on familiarity with past events to keep the audience from getting bogged down. Similarly, students with ample prior knowledge are more likely to keep pace with a lesson.

When starting a new lesson, students unfamiliar with the topic are often overwhelmed by the amount of new information they need to process. Using graphic organizers-anchor charts and concept maps, for example-can help them map the conceptual terrain, bringing into sharp focus the difference between main ideas and support details, or how big concepts relate to each other. In a 2021 study, middle school students who used graphic organizers to organize their thinking around the topic they were learning about-the seasons-improved their factual recall by 45 percent and comprehension by 64 percent, compared with students who had simply studied the material.

For fictional texts, K-8 special education teacher Dianne Stratford recommends using story maps -an activity that helps young readers "understand the elements of a story, such as characters, setting, problem, and solution, or sequential points of the story, such as beginning, middle, and end." Not only will it help students remember the story, but it'll help provide a framework for understanding any future texts they encounter.

6. Pretending to learn. In Oscar Carillo's kindergarten class, students learn about the different parts of a car-the pedals and wheels, for example-while dashing around the room making "Vroom, vroom!" sounds. In another story, they pretend to be sharks and turtles swimming through water. Not only does it strengthen oral language skills, says Principal Sarah Bartels Marrero, but also it helps them "understand the shape of a story."

Asking young learners to imagine story events and engage in pretend play as a prereading activity helps them build "world knowledge," according to a 2018 study. When preschoolers spent 10 minutes pretending that they were chefs in a restaurant cooking pizza-rolling the dough, adding toppings, and then baking the pizza, for example-they predictably outperformed their peers (who had played with unrelated toys) on tests on pizza-making knowledge. The pretend-play kids were also able to make better inferences-reading between the lines to answer questions around a character's goal or motivations, for example-outperforming their peers by more than double.

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How to Move From the 'Main Idea' to 'Background Knowledge'

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Traditional approaches to reading instruction-such as finding the "main idea"-are less effective than a knowledge-rich approach, the research shows.

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Give text the top seed in literacy instruction.