This article describes the development and initial implementation of the Comprehension and Learning from Text Survey (CoLTS), an instrument designed to assess teachers' specialized knowledge for comprehension instruction in the context of discussion. CoLTS is a paper-and-pencil test that engages teachers in analyzing a text to identify the most…

Explores a caveat for teaching language-minority students: As an educational community, teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers need to be careful that they do not simply add to familiar patterns of instruction but rather actively seek ways to recast the cultures of schools and the social systems of classrooms to meet the needs of…

Describes an instructional program designed to promote scientific literacy among middle grade students. The program used a collaborative group instruction approach and focused on the development of tasks that provided students with opportunities to solve problems and to employ concepts useful to scientific problem solving. (PAM)

One of the most rapidly developing areas of educational innovation involves the texts available to young readers and their teachers, leading to a host of new issues regarding the characteristics and roles of text that support young children's learning. This article describes research conducted by investigators at the Center for the Improvement of…