Reading comprehension is among the most challenging and complex skills to teach and research. Doing both well is critical to improving the reading comprehension proficiency of 67% of grade 4 students in U.S. public schools who scored below basic on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress. This Chapter presents Knowledge Acquisition…

This study aims to determine pre-service teachers' perceptions from different disciplines about number sense and reveal the strategies used to serve the components of number sense. The study is designed qualitatively, according to the phenomenology design. The study group consisted of a total of 265 pre-service teachers, 92 from Preschool…

This systematic review examined whether building content knowledge in science and/or social studies topics during English Language Arts (ELA) instruction enhances vocabulary and comprehension. It also described how ELA instruction has been leveraged to build content knowledge in the elementary years. A systematic search of the extant literature…

This systematic review examined whether building content knowledge in science and/or social studies topics during English Language Arts (ELA) instruction enhances vocabulary and comprehension. It also described how ELA instruction has been leveraged to build content knowledge in the elementary years. A systematic search of the extant literature…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine the extent to which preservice teachers could identify various academic language markers (general academic and discipline-specific vocabulary, passive voice, nominalization, logical connections, and referents--pronouns and synonyms) in complex texts and describe the language that make texts…

Elementary-level teacher Redford dispels the idea that instructional time should not be spent teaching content material because content is now Googleable. As research shows, background knowledge significantly influences basic comprehension, even in very young students; students need a core of background knowledge to decipher texts and understand…

More than 50% of fourth graders in the United States are reading below a proficient level, with more than 75% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch scoring lower than the U.S. average reading score. A framework of background knowledge is essential for vocabulary acquisition so the reader can comprehend the meaning of a text.…

The Read to be Ready campaign emerged from the startling reality of Tennessee's reading achievement data. Only one-third of Tennessee fourth graders scored proficient in the last administration of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) in 2015. Equally concerning, students who fell behind in the early years almost never caught up in…

In fall of 2019, the EdWeek Research Center set out to gain a clearer sense of nationwide teacher and teacher education perceptions and practices by sending out two surveys about topics related to early reading instruction, especially as it related to phonics. One survey was taken by 674 K-2 and elementary special education teachers who indicated…

We compared year-long gains in fluency and comprehension in grades 3-5 in 3 treatment and 4 comparison schools. Treatment schools implemented a comprehensive school reform (CSR) program called Bookworms. The program employed challenging text and emphasized high text volume, aggressive vocabulary and knowledge building, and contextualized strategy…

This paper provides a description and rationale for a performance assessment of a teaching practice--leading a classroom discussion (LCD)--included in the ETS® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. In this assessment, candidates interact with a small class of virtual students represented by avatars in a…

This report describes and provides research and scholarly support for a core practice of teaching--eliciting student thinking (EST)--that is the target for a performance assessment contributing one component of the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. The purpose of this report is to review the…

This report reviews the scholarly and research evidence supporting the construct labeled modeling and explaining content (MEC), which is measured via a performance assessment in the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. This construct involves practices at the heart of teaching that deal with how…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment measures students' knowledge and skills in mathematics and students' ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations. At each grade, students responded to questions designed to measure what they know and can do across five mathematics content areas: number…

In two experiments, we examined fourth and fifth graders' comprehension of the source of information in texts presenting controversial issues. In Experiment 1, participants read short texts in which two people presented different arguments regarding an issue. Participants identified who said what and evaluated each source's knowledge of the issue.…