The increase in screen-based publishing over the past 30 years has sparked an evolution of reading. Reading's natural scope has ignited interest across paradigms. The resulting scholarship offers rich opportunity, but also presents a concerning challenge -- approaches differ across disciplines, producing results that can be difficult to interpret…

The purpose of this article is to comment on ways that writing-reading connections can take place enhancing reading comprehension and composition. Drawing from a genre-based instructional approach, examples are provided to explain such connections in the process of (a) a rhetorical analysis conducted on writing prompts and prior to reading, (b)…

This article focuses on the development of the Texas comprehension standards as found in the comprehension strand of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The standards are described in relation to effective comprehension strategies.

College students are expected to comprehend, analyze, and respond to texts that are often challenging, complex, and specialized. While the importance and value of reading in higher education is hardly disputed, postsecondary literacy frequently revolves around the reinforcement of rudimentary skills. Furthermore, the demands of writing instruction…

New strategies come along all the time, but these strategies matter little if educators are not sure why they are using them or what the desired outcome is. Quality literacy instruction should be rooted in effective foundational practices. Text-dependent questions offer a foundation for literacy practices that support students' comprehension,…

In today's diverse and global world, the importance of disciplinary literacy is rapidly increasing. Thus, elementary educators must consider ways to incorporate disciplinary literacy into their instruction. Elementary educators often implement the transactional theory of reading to enhance comprehension and evoke aesthetic responses to fiction…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading aims to measure reading comprehension for students in the United States and to monitor progress in our education system. NAEP Reading is developed based on an assessment framework document that is periodically revised to reflect the latest understandings about reading comprehension…

With the release of the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) results, concerns that reading scores of U.S. students have remained flat for the past decade have surfaced again along with suggestions about the source of this problem and how it might be remedied. The…

This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one of the most influential reading researchers of the last half-century. Presenters addressed the nature, instruction, and assessment of reading comprehension, teacher learning and comprehension, and the texts and contexts of comprehension. Collectively,…

Fluency is the ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories accurately, with enough speed, and expression. It is important to remember that fluency is not an end in itself but a critical gateway to comprehension.

Content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are umbrella terms that describe two approaches to literacy instruction embedded within different subject areas or disciplines. Under a content area literacy approach, students learn reading and writing processes that are common across disciplines. As part of content area literacy instruction,…

In a recent classroom-based action research study, the author's adolescent students deepened their informational text comprehension skills over the course of several interactive, strategic shared text studies. As suggested by research and theory, her students appeared to observe and appropriate cognitive, executive, and discourse strategies as…

The use of quality texts in elementary classrooms plays a major role in children's literacy development. Quality children's literature helps learners develop into skilled readers and writers with increased gains in vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. This paper demonstrates how pre-service teachers gained an understanding of the educational…

Choral reading is reading in unison, like a chorus, with the teacher taking the lead (Rasinski, 1989). It is highly efficient because all students practice at the same time (Paige & Magpuri-Lavell, 2014). It is also effective with struggling readers and English Learners because of the "tent of anonymity" it provides when readers read…

The changing nature of communication has accentuated the need to develop multimodal literacy in students. Although the conventional way of asking a series of questions to elicit students' comprehension has helped build reading and comprehension skills, teachers could provide more support in the form of the language, pedagogical scaffolds, and…