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Effectively learning to evaluate sources, especially when conducting online research, is an essential skill for middle-grade students. This article argues that supporting students in learning to evaluate sources must involve using critical consciousness skills to do so, or the evaluation is incomplete. In the article, the authors expand the critical online reasoning and evaluation (CORE) framework to support students in learning to read in a critically conscious way. Critical consciousness is a key means for students to use in learning and solidifying critical literacy skills, and this focus is essential if we are to support students in learning to "read the word and the world."

Many children bring rich multimodal literacy practices into their classrooms, with experience weaving between paper and digital texts. In order to support children's multimodal meaning making, teachers need first to understand the multimodal practices that children bring into the classroom in order to then develop instruction that builds on, and extends, children's existing literacy practices. This article presents a tool to assess young children's multimodal literacies. The Integrative Multimodal Literacy Assessment (IMLA) evaluates children's multimodal meaning making through a questionnaire and performance activity. In this article, we first describe the tool and explain how to administer it in diverse classroom contexts. We then share findings from a pilot study, using the IMLA, conducted in two urban preschools as an example of how teachers might use the tool in their own classrooms.

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 and its assessment. A key goal of the Visioning Panel (VP) and the Development Panel (DP) charged with updating the NAEP Reading Assessment Framework for 2026 was to lay the foundation for an assessment that made progress toward greater fairness, equity, and validity. In this essay, we discuss how the Framework development process unfolded and its results. We document the unusual ways the National Assessment Governing Board ("the Board") shaped the development process. We provide evidence that a small group of Board members aimed to preserve the status quo in reading assessment by downplaying reliance on expertise and authoritative sources of research on reading, learning, and assessment and by removing attention to equity in NAEP Reading. We also discuss both successful (i.e., approved by the Board) and unsuccessful (i.e., rejected by the Board) recommendations for changes to the 2026 Framework that initially were proposed by the DP. We end by considering how, despite the efforts of the small group of Board members, we as a literacy field can improve the nature and impact of our large-scale reading assessments, and NAEP in particular.

The authors argue for an expansive and inclusive approach to literacy instruction that moves beyond multimodality to embrace multiplicity in readers, texts, mediums, activities, environments, and contexts aligned to our 21st century world. In particular, rather than privileging the linguistic mode, the authors argue for using all modes and centering multimodality. Such an expansive and inclusive approach to literacy instruction promotes criticality and allows students to engage in relevant instruction that can help students address social issues that matter to them while also preparing them to engage with the varied forms of text that we use today.

Motivation for reading is important to comprehension and has been studied extensively in offline reading contexts. However, little is known about the role of motivation in online reading, a new and increasingly important context for reading, largely because of a lack of valid and reliable instruments to estimate a student's motivation for online reading. The authors report on the development of the Motivations for Online Reading Questionnaire (MORQ) among 1,798 seventh-grade students in two states. Results from confirmatory factor analysis revealed a three-factor solution for the MORQ: curiosity/value, self-efficacy, and self-improvement beliefs. Additionally, measurement invariance across female and male students was established. Predictive validity of the MORQ was supported by the positive and significant contribution of the MORQ to the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment, an established measure of online reading comprehension. Results help establish the MORQ as a well-validated instrument for measuring online reading motivation. Results are discussed in relation to theory, research, and practice. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED607848.]

Recently, many have released calls for the need to help students evaluate online information. Additionally, many have offered strategies, lists, and other heuristics for helping students evaluate. However, educators lack a method for organizing these various practices into a systematic framework that captures the complex (occurring within online inquiry) and multifaceted (having multiple components) nature of evaluation. Such a framework can guide students as they evaluate information online. The author proposes such a framework that positions readers as proactive judges engaging in iterative evaluation of relevancy and credibility within and across three tiers (content, source, and context) and multiple texts while researching a topic of interest during online research and comprehension. The author also offers three instructional practices for engaging students in the framework, as well as an example of one student using the framework with support from his teacher.

This study investigated how well seventh-grade students (n = 1,434) evaluated the credibility of online information in science. The analysis examined the extent to which evaluation appeared to share aspects of other elements of online research and comprehension, including locating, synthesizing, and communicating. This study also investigated the extent to which prior knowledge, gender, socioeconomic status, and offline reading ability affected students' evaluation during online reading in science. Results suggest that evaluation is a unique and difficult dimension of online research and comprehension. Results also suggest that girls outperform boys and that students with greater prior knowledge and offline reading ability can better evaluate online information compared with those with less prior knowledge and offline reading ability.

In this joint reflection, the authors discuss the nature of literacy in relation to "New Literacies: A Dual-Level Theory of the Changing Nature of Literacy, Instruction, and Assessment" (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013), a chapter reprinted in this issue of the "Journal of Education." They reflect on the meaning of a dual-level theory for teaching and research as the nature of literacy continuously changes. Within this context they consider what has changed and what remains the same in today's literacy landscape as well as the implications for future theory, research, and practice.

A recent study in "Reading Research Quarterly" provided evidence that an online reading achievement gap, based on income inequality, exists that is separate and independent from the well-known achievement gap in offline reading. This column briefly reviews the evidence and provides an initial set of instructional suggestions that may be used to help close the gap.

While countless new technologies are appearing in our lives and in school classrooms, we argue that we need to keep in mind our goals in reading before we use any of them. We suggest that a primary goal is to develop the ability to read in order to learn with online information. Technologies that support this goal, especially the Internet, and instructional practices that support the development of online reading should be our primary consideration for reading and literacy education, beginning in the primary grades.

Is there an achievement gap for online reading ability based on income inequality that is separate from the achievement gap in traditional, offline reading? This possibility was examined between students in two pseudonymous school districts: West Town (economically advantaged) and East Town (economically challenged; N = 256). Performance-based assessments were used within a simulation of the Internet developed as part of a larger project. Seventh graders completed two online research and comprehension assessments, which evaluated four skill areas (locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate) and two knowledge domains in science. Students also completed an assessment of prior domain knowledge and a short Internet use questionnaire. Standardized state reading and writing test scores served as measures of offline literacy skills. Results indicated that there was a significant achievement gap favoring West Town students in offline reading scores, offline writing scores, and online research and comprehension scores. A significant gap persisted for online research and comprehension after we conditioned on pretest differences in offline reading, offline writing, and prior knowledge scores. The results of the questionnaire indicated that West Town students had greater access to the Internet at home and were required to use the Internet more in school. These results suggest that a separate and independent achievement gap existed for online reading, based on income inequality. Current estimates of this gap, which rely solely on measures of offline reading, may underrepresent the true nature of the U.S. reading achievement gap in an online age. Policy implications are explored.

Effectively learning to evaluate sources, especially when conducting online research, is an essential skill for middle‐grade students. This article argues that supporting students in learning to evaluate sources must involve using critical consciousness skills to do so, or the evaluation is incomplete. In the article, the authors expand the critical online reasoning and evaluation (CORE) framework to support students in learning to read in a critically conscious way. Critical consciousness is a key means for students to use in learning and solidifying critical literacy skills, and this focus is essential if we are to support students in learning to "read the word and the world." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All students must start learning new literacies skills early if they are to gain the skills they will need as adults. Integrating these skills into classroom instruction at a young age is especially important for economically disadvantaged students. Moreover, the interactive nature of the Internet and other digital tools may hold special learning opportunities for young children. New literacies instruction not only is necessary and appropriate for young children; it will define their future.

The rapid emergence of the Internet is having an historic impact on literacy practices and on the very nature of literacy itself. Each article in this issue has articulated these changes. Each brings a unique and important perspective to its analysis. They illustrate that, today, literacy means many different things to many different people. This issue presents a multifaceted description of many new literacies and issues that have emerged as the Internet, and related technologies, define this century. To place these articles in context, one must realize that even more profound changes to literacy lie ahead. The Internet, and its potential to disseminate rapidly new technologies of literacy, ensures that literacy will rapidly and continually change.

This commentary explores a central issue for our times, online reading comprehension. It first defines three issues that have largely gone unnoticed as the Internet enters our classrooms: (1) literacy has become deictic; (2) effective online information use requires additional online reading comprehension practices, skills, and dispositions; and (3) misalignments in public policy, assessment, and instruction impede our ability to prepare students for the effective use of online information and communication. It analyzes the Common Core State Standards for Reading and Writing in the U. S. and the Australian National Curriculum in relation to elements of online reading comprehension. It argues that continued misalignments especially jeopardize opportunities for those students in districts that are economically challenged.

Motivation for reading is important to comprehension and has been studied extensively in offline reading contexts. However, little is known about the role of motivation in online reading, a new and increasingly important context for reading, largely because of a lack of valid and reliable instruments to estimate a student's motivation for online reading. The authors report on the development of the Motivations for Online Reading Questionnaire (MORQ) among 1,798 seventh‐grade students in two states. Results from confirmatory factor analysis revealed a three‐factor solution for the MORQ: curiosity/value, self‐efficacy, and self‐improvement beliefs. Additionally, measurement invariance across female and male students was established. Predictive validity of the MORQ was supported by the positive and significant contribution of the MORQ to the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment, an established measure of online reading comprehension. Results help establish the MORQ as a well‐validated instrument for measuring online reading motivation. Results are discussed in relation to theory, research, and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]