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Although substantial research has established how to teach word reading, the research base for teaching skills related to language and reading comprehension is more limited. We report a multistate experiment of a supplemental, whole-class, language-focused curriculum delivered in prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms that was designed to improve children's language comprehension and thereby support later reading comprehension. We randomly assigned 69 prekindergarten classrooms (n = 361 children) and 56 kindergarten classrooms (n = 328 children) to receive language-focused intervention or to a control condition. Children in intervention conditions experienced one of two instantiations of Let's Know! (Let's Know! Broad or Let's Know! Deep) as implemented by their classroom teachers. Both instantiations provide four 30-min lessons per week of targeted instruction on key lower- and higher-level language skills over 25 weeks; the instantiations differ in the amount of practice afforded to particular skills. We measured children's comprehension-related skills (target vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, understanding narrative text and story grammar, understanding expository text) via curriculum-aligned measures during the academic year and their vocabulary and language comprehension at pretest and posttest. Multilevel analyses showed similar effects for both instantiations, with Let's Know! positively impacting some of the immediate tests of curriculum-aligned skills (vocabulary, comprehension monitoring, understanding of expository text) and also the posttest vocabulary outcome, but not standardized language comprehension outcomes; impacts on curriculum-aligned skills did not mediate effects on language comprehension outcomes. Results have implications for the Let's Know! theory of change as well as continued research on supporting children's language and comprehension skills. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Despite improvements in word-level reading instruction, many children continue to struggle with reading comprehension. In this study, we tested a whole-class, supplemental curriculum, Let's Know!, designed to support prekindergarten and kindergarten children's oral language and comprehension skills. We found that Let's Know! improved children's knowledge of vocabulary used in the curriculum and some comprehension-related skills but did not impact scores on standardized language comprehension measures. Results provide evidence that classroom instruction can improve some skills related to later comprehension; however, more work is necessary to develop and validate curricula that directly impact language and reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports the effects of a distributed professional development model emphasizing reading comprehension and vocabulary practices in social studies on the content knowledge, vocabulary, and reading comprehension outcomes of upper elementary students identified as English learners (ELs). Schools were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: researcher-supported professional development (PD), school-supported PD, or business as usual (BAU; typical instruction). Findings from a prior randomized control trial revealed significant effects for both treatment conditions when compared with the BAU group for content knowledge, vocabulary learning and reading comprehension in content (Capin et al., 2020). This analysis addressed three related follow-up questions: (a) Does treatment affect ELs and non-ELs differently? (b) Does treatment affect students differently depending on the school-wide percentage of ELs? (c) Does treatment affect EL students differently from non ELs depending on the school-wide percentage of ELs? Findings revealed that ELs in treatment conditions outperformed ELs in the BAU condition and school level percentage of ELs had an impact on EL vocabulary performance. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: This study demonstrates that a distributed professional development model focused on developing fourth-grade teachers' use of integrated vocabulary and reading comprehension practices within social studies instruction significantly improves English learners' (ELs) and non-ELs' performance on measures of social studies knowledge and vocabulary. The study also reported that the effects of professional development on the performance of ELs and non-ELs varied on a general measure of vocabulary based on the school-wide proportion of ELs. These findings suggest that professional development for teachers focused on evidence-based practices for content-area vocabulary and reading comprehension demonstrates positive impact for students though the impact may vary for ELs and non-ELs based on the proportion of ELs at their school site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing whether an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior studies) as well as delayed tests (which are important for demonstrating long-term learning of material). The experiments also tested whether an effect would be seen when learning outcomes were measured using questions testing memory for the text and questions testing comprehension from the text, and the experiments explored whether effects would be seen for a text written below grade level (Experiment 1) versus at an appropriate grade level (Experiment 2). Across both experiments, results supported that expecting to teach improved learning outcomes even at a delay and improved both memory and comprehension from expository texts. These results suggest that expecting to teach may be a useful activity for supporting durable learning from expository texts. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Previous research has demonstrated that when students act as "teachers" and tutor their peers, it can lead to improvements in the learning of the "teachers." A more provocative claim is that just preparing to teach others (and not actually doing it) can also have a beneficial effect. The present experiments tested for benefits when students simply prepared to teach another student and found that preparing to teach (vs. preparing to test) led to better performance on test items measuring both memory for text and comprehension from text for the "teacher." Further, these results extended prior work by showing benefits for both memory and comprehension on a delayed test and with a text written at an appropriate grade level. These results provide support for the suggestion that solely providing students with the expectation that they will have to teach another student may be a useful educational activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 3-wave longitudinal study explored the complex ways in which students' motivation (motivational attitudes and beliefs), relationships with teachers (closeness, conflict, and dependency), and academic achievement (reading comprehension and math performance) inform one another from kindergarten through 6th grade. The sample included students (N = 1,267; 49.3% boys) and 207 teachers participating in the Dutch triennial COOL cohort study. At all waves, teachers reported on relationship quality and students' motivational attitudes, and students completed nationally normed reading comprehension and math tests. Students also reported on their motivational beliefs (self-efficacy and task motivation) and levels of closeness with their teachers at Waves 2 and 3. Cross-lagged panel models revealed robust support for 4 transactional models of teacher- and student-reported closeness, and teacher-reported conflict and dependency. These models generally indicated that student–teacher closeness, conflict and dependency, students' motivation, and academic achievement informed each other across the elementary grades. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Research on student–teacher relationships and academic adjustment continues to rapidly expand, but we have a limited understanding about how students' relationships with teachers and academic adjustment inform one another from kindergarten through sixth grade. In this large-scale longitudinal study, we found evidence for transactional models in which student–teacher relationship quality, students' motivational attitudes and beliefs, and their achievement were reciprocally linked across the elementary years. Thus, not only do student–teacher relationships portend academic success, they are also a mechanism by which students feel more confident and engaged in academic content. Teaching teachers skills for fostering high-quality relationships with their students will likely deliver a valuable return on investment in terms of student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiency in reading component skills is crucial for reading comprehension, as efficient subprocesses do not extensively consume limited cognitive resources, making them available for comprehension processes. Cognitive efficiency is typically measured with speeded tests of relatively easy items. Observed responses and response times indicate the latent variables of ability and speed. Interpreting only ability or speed as efficiency may be misleading because there is a within-person dependency between both variables (speed–ability tradeoff [SAT]). Therefore, the present study measures efficiency as ability conditional on speed by controlling speed experimentally with item-level time limits. The proposed timed ability measures of reading component skills are expected to have a clearer interpretation in terms of efficiency and to be better predictors for reading comprehension. To support this claim, this study investigates two component skills, visual word recognition and sentence-level semantic integration (sentence reading), to understand how differences in ability in a timed condition are related to differences in ability and speed in a traditional untimed condition. Moreover, untimed and timed reading component skill measures were used to explain reading comprehension. A German subsample from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 completed the reading component skills tasks with and without item-level time limits and PISA reading tasks. The results showed that timed ability is only moderately related to untimed ability. Furthermore, timed ability measures proved to be stronger predictors of sentence-level and text-level reading comprehension than the corresponding untimed ability and speed measures, although using untimed ability and speed jointly as predictors increased the amount of explained variance. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: The study suggests that the assessment of reading component skills (e.g., word recognition) can be improved by controlling the time a reader spends solving individual tasks. The new measures provide a clearer picture of how strongly lower level processes support or hamper reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the impacts of 2 different graphic organizers (filled-in graphic organizers and interactive graphic organizers) on middle school students' learning processes, outcomes, experiences, and preferences. In Experiment 1, 60 students were assigned to read a short expository passage in 1 of 3 conditions: text-only, filled-in graphic organizers, or interactive graphic organizers. Learning processes were examined with an eye-tracker that recorded students' eye movements during learning. Learning outcomes were measured with retention and comprehension tests. Learning experiences were measured by survey instruments that probed students' cognitive load and satisfaction. The results showed that compared to the text-only group, both graphic organizer groups performed better on retention and comprehension tests; spent less time fixating on the text area and more time on the graphic organizers area; and reported more learning satisfaction and less perceived difficulty. In addition, the interactive graphic organizers group performed better than the filled-in organizer group on comprehension tests and performed more up-down transitions and left-right transitions, indicating deeper processing. In Experiment 2, 230 students were asked to browse 54 materials with different graphic organizers and to select their favorite three materials. The results showed that the students preferred the interactive graphic organizers the most, then the filled-in graphic organizers, and the text-only last. These results support generative learning theory, suggesting that the interactive graphic organizers, which middle school students liked the most, encouraged them to engage in more integrative cognitive processes, achieve deeper learning outcomes, and have better learning experiences. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: This study examined the impacts of filled-in graphic organizers and interactive graphic organizers on students' learning. The findings showed that both graphic organizers helped students perform better on their test performance, and improved students' satisfaction for learning. In addition, the interactive graphic organizers helped increase the students' generative cognitive processes and helped them create graphic organizers in new situations. The study points to the potential of interactive graphic organizers as a tool for priming generative learning strategies in learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sentences in texts are far more complex and diverse than those that children commonly encounter in oral language. This raises interesting questions as to whether the understanding of some sentence types might be more important than others in children's reading comprehension. Accordingly, we examined the relation between children's reading comprehension and their understanding of two types of sentences: one we label as basic sentences, which are common in both oral and written language, and the other we label as difficult sentences, which are more restricted to written language. One hundred and four English-speaking students (mean age = 10.8 years) completed an experimental measure of oral sentence comprehension capturing these two sentence types, a standardized measure of reading comprehension, as well as control measures for word reading, phonological awareness, vocabulary and working memory. After accounting for the variance explained by the control measures, hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that comprehension of basic sentences, but not of difficult sentences, was significantly related to children's reading comprehension. These results demonstrate that, at least in the 5th grade, English-speaking children use their understanding of those sentences for which they have gained a strong foundation through oral language (i.e. basic sentences) to springboard into reading for understanding. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Interventions for reading comprehension tend to focus on building vocabulary skills in particular or oral language as a whole. Our findings also highlight a crucial role for oral sentence comprehension as an underlying skill supporting reading for understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effectiveness of the Model of Reading Engagement (MORE), a content literacy intervention, on first graders' science domain knowledge, reading engagement, and reading comprehension. The MORE intervention emphasizes the role of domain knowledge and reading engagement in supporting reading comprehension. MORE lessons included a 10-day thematic unit that provided a framework for students to connect new learning to a meaningful schema (i.e., Arctic animal survival) and to pursue mastery goals for acquiring domain knowledge. A total of 38 first-grade classrooms (N = 674 students) within 10 elementary schools were randomly assigned to (a) MORE at school (MS), (b) MORE at home, (MS-H), in which the MS condition included at-home reading, or (c) typical instruction. Since there were minimal differences in procedures between the MS and MS-H conditions, the main analyses combined the two treatment groups. Findings from hierarchical linear models revealed that the MORE intervention had a positive and significant effect on science domain knowledge, as measured by vocabulary knowledge depth (effect size [ES] =.30), listening comprehension (ES =.40), and argumentative writing (ES =.24). The MORE intervention effects on reading engagement as measured by situational interest, reading motivation, and task orientations were not statistically significant. However, the intervention had a significant, positive effect on a distal measure of reading comprehension (ES =.11), and there was no evidence of Treatment × Aptitude interaction effects. Content literacy can facilitate first graders' acquisition of science domain knowledge and reading comprehension without contributing to Matthew effects. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: In the present study, classroom teachers taught first-grade children about science knowledge while they conducted literacy instruction. Grounding literacy instruction in science content is called content literacy instruction. The aim of content literacy instruction is to help young children acquire conceptually related vocabulary while learning science (and history) content. Results indicate that content literacy instruction can improve first graders' science domain knowledge and reading comprehension outcomes. Furthermore, there were no negative or adverse effects on first graders' reading engagement or basic literacy skills. The study suggests that content literacy instruction can improve the rigor, quality, and effectiveness of whole class literacy instruction in the early elementary grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated contributors of English reading comprehension outcomes among predominantly U.S.-born 1st- and 3rd-grade (N = 73) dual language learners (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking, low-income homes who attend English-only instructional schools in the Southern region of the United States, which is experiencing historic rates of school-age DLL enrollment. We investigated the utility of various conceptualizations of vocabulary, namely English-only, Spanish-only, and specifically Spanish–English conceptually scored receptive vocabulary, in understanding DLLs' reading comprehension. We first examined whether a gap was evident between the various conceptualizations of vocabulary and English word reading. Then, using structural equation modeling, we investigated the influence of the various conceptualizations of vocabulary on English reading comprehension, accounting for English word reading skills. Finally, we examined the potential contributions of DLLs' home language environments. Results revealed that the gap between English word reading and vocabulary varied as a function of the conceptualization of vocabulary. Further, English word reading emerged as the robust contributor to children's English reading comprehension, with no significant influence of receptive vocabulary, regardless of how it was conceptualized. Finally, and contributing to a nascent area of research, attention to DLLs' home language use practices suggests that the productive language domain (i.e., children's own home language use) may represent an important contributor to English reading comprehension among DLLs from Spanish-speaking homes. We discuss theoretical and practical implications. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Given the importance of reading comprehension for overall academic success and the demographic shifts across classrooms in the United States more generally and in the Southern region of the United States more specifically, there is an increasing need to understand the factors that contribute to English reading comprehension outcomes among school-aged dual language learners' (DLLs) from Spanish-speaking homes. This study explored how word reading, receptive vocabulary, and home language use patterns contribute to English reading comprehension among DLLs from Spanish-speaking, low-income homes in an urban school district in the Southern United States. Results confirmed the robust role of word reading as a predictor of English reading comprehension, but, unlike previous work, also revealed that DLLs' word reading skills require further support and development. While vocabulary was not a robust predictor, assessments that measured knowledge of concepts as they were distributed across both Spanish and English were found to be more effective at demonstrating the rich linguistic knowledge DLLs possess. In fact, the previously noted gap between generally adequate word reading and low vocabulary among DLLs varied significantly depending on the vocabulary measure used. Finally, findings suggest that the language students produce at home may be more important than the language students are exposed to at home, warranting further research into the role of the productive language domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated 2 hypotheses of a recently proposed integrative theoretical model of reading, the direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER; Kim, 2017b, 2019): (a) hierarchical relations and (b) dynamic relations (or differential relations) of skills to reading comprehension. Students were assessed on reading comprehension, word reading, listening comprehension, working memory, attention, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, perspective taking (theory of mind), knowledge-based inference, and comprehension monitoring in Grade 2 and again in Grade 4. Structural equation model results supported the hierarchical relations hypothesis of DIER. When a nonhierarchical, direct relations model was fitted, primarily the upper level skills (i.e., word reading and listening comprehension) were statistically significant. When hierarchical, direct, and indirect relations models were fitted, lower level skills (e.g., working memory, vocabulary) and higher order cognitive skills (e.g., perspective taking) were indirectly related to reading comprehension via multiple pathways, whereas word reading and listening comprehension remained directly related to reading comprehension. Furthermore, the magnitudes of relations varied in Grade 2 versus Grade 4 such that perspective taking (as measured by theory of mind), vocabulary, and working memory had larger effects whereas comprehension monitoring and grammatical knowledge had smaller effects on reading comprehension in Grade 4 than in Grade 2. These results provide some support for the dynamic relations hypothesis of DIER, but also suggest the complex nature of the dynamic relations as a function of development and text characteristics. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: As a complex construct, reading comprehension draws on numerous language and cognitive skills. The direct and indirect effects model of reading (DIER) integrates extant prominent theoretical models and empirical evidence, and specifies structural relations among component skills—hierarchical, dynamic, and interactive relations. Findings revealed an emerging picture of structural relations, and support the importance of articulating, understanding, and examining structural relations among multiple factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this large-scale study of students from Title 1 schools (N = 14,773), we used multiple-group latent change score (LCS) modeling to investigate the developmental relations between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in students with a school-identified learning disability (LD; n = 627) and typically developing students (n = 14,146). Students were tested for their vocabulary breadth and passage comprehension skills in kindergarten through fourth grade. For typically developing students, there were bidirectional influences between their vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skills. There were no cross-lagged influences across constructs for students with an LD. We find evidence for a developmental delay, such that students with an LD had similar levels and gains in their vocabulary knowledge relative to typically developing students, but these students started much lower in their reading comprehension skills and did not catch up to their typically developing peers. We discuss the implications for children with learning disabilities and the development of their reading comprehension skills. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: The present study suggests that for students with a school-identified learning disability (LD), the amount of vocabulary words a student with an LD knows does not have a direct impact on their growth in reading comprehension skills. This may have implications for language-based interventions of reading problems for these children with LD, as we find little evidence that improvements in language will transfer to their reading comprehension delays. This further emphasizes the importance creating individual education plans as a way to stimulate growth in reading comprehension for students with an LD in at-risk environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misconceptions impair not only learners' comprehension of a text but also the accuracy with which they judge their comprehension, that is, metacomprehension accuracy. Refutation texts are beneficial to elicit conceptualchange processes and thus to overcome the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension. However, it is unclear whether refutation texts and the conceptual-change processes induced by reading them benefit metacomprehension accuracy in addition to comprehension and how robust these effects are when reading further texts. We conducted an experiment in which we asked 80 student teachers with a varying number of statistical misconceptions to read either a standard or a refutation text on statistics and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension. In a subsample, we examined the students' conceptual-change processes during reading with the think-aloud methodology. Subsequently, we asked the students to read a research report that required the application of the previously acquired statistical knowledge and assessed their comprehension and metacomprehension again. The results revealed that the refutation text compensated for the detrimental impact of misconceptions on comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. The thinkaloud data indicated that when reading the refutation text, students with more misconceptions engaged in conceptual-change processes more actively, which in turn supported their comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy. Compensatory effects of the refutation text were also found when the students read the research report. In sum, the findings show that refutation texts are beneficial for both comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy and that these benefits transfer to situations where the acquired knowledge has to be put into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report results of 2 studies examining the relation between decoding and reading comprehension. Based on our analysis of prominent reading theories such as the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2002) and the Self-Teaching Hypothesis (Share, 1995), we propose the Decoding Threshold Hypothesis, which posits that the relation between decoding and reading comprehension can only be reliably observed above a certain decoding threshold. In Study 1, the Decoding Threshold Hypothesis was tested in a sample of over 10,000 Grade 5-10 students. Using quantile regression, classification analysis (Receiver Operating Characteristics) and broken-line regression, we found a reliable decoding threshold value below that there was no relation between decoding and reading comprehension, and above which the two measures showed a positive linear relation. Study 2 is a longitudinal analysis of over 30,000 students' reading comprehension growth as a function of their initial decoding status. Results showed that scoring below the decoding threshold was associated with stagnant growth in reading comprehension. We argue that the Decoding Threshold Hypothesis has the potential to explain differences in the prominent reading theories in terms of the role of decoding in reading comprehension in students at Grade 5 and above. Furthermore, the identification of decoding threshold also has implications for reading practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive reading intervention targeting current and former English learners identified as struggling readers based on their performance on the state accountability assessment. Students who enrolled at three participating urban high schools were randomly assigned to the Reading Intervention for Adolescents treatment condition (n = 175) or a business-as-usual comparison condition. Students assigned to the treatment condition participated in the intervention for approximately 50 min daily for 2 school years in lieu of a school-provided elective course, which business-as-usual students took consistent with typical scheduling. Findings revealed significant effects for the treatment condition on sentence-level fluency and comprehension (g = 0.18) and on a proximal measure of vocabulary learning (g = .41), but not on standardized measures of word reading, vocabulary, or reading comprehension (g range: -0.09 to 0.06). Post hoc moderation analyses investigated whether initial proficiency levels interacted with treatment effects. On sentence-level fluency and comprehension and on vocabulary learning, initial scores were significantly associated with treatment effects--however, in opposite directions. Students who scored low at baseline on sentence reading and comprehension scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure, whereas students who scored high at baseline on the proximal vocabulary measure scored relatively higher at posttest on that measure. The discussion focuses on the difficulty of remediating persistent reading difficulties in high school, particularly among English learners, who are often still in the process of acquiring academic proficiency in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine 2 issues: (a) how students integrate information from multiple scientific documents to describe and explain a physical phenomenon that represents a subset of the information in the documents; and (b) the role of 2 sorts of tasks to achieve this type of integration, either writing an essay on a question requiring integration across texts or answering shorter intratext questions that require students to integrate information within a single text, while superficial and deep comprehension measurements are obtained. Undergraduate students answered 1 of the 2 types of questions, and their reading times were recorded. Half of the sample thought aloud. Results showed that the integration question increased integration and decreased the processing of isolated units of information, which enhanced deep learning, whereas no differences between the 2 sorts of tasks on memory recall were apparent. This research also provides evidence for the discrepancy between training and posttraining effects (R. A. Schmidt & R. A. Bjork, 1992). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on a study which compared groups of college readers on several information-processing and language comprehension tasks that tap the cognitive components of reading. Results confirming the importance of word processing and general language comprehension in distinguishing skilled from less skilled readers; Evidence of the reemergence of lower level processing skills in adults as a function of text difficulty.

Compares Japanese and American students' recognition memory for statements made during a videotaped mathematics lesson. Testing for recognition of teacher statements that were relevant or irrelevant to the content of the lesson; Comparison of the recognition performance of Japanese and American students; Patterns of recognition as cultural.