This brief is one in a series aimed at providing K-12 education decision makers and advocates with an evidence base to ground discussions about how to best serve students during and following the novel coronavirus pandemic. It addresses one central question: How can system leaders improve reading comprehension for students in kindergarten to grade…

Comprehending tasks can be challenging for adolescent readers who lack proficiency in applying effective reading strategies. This challenge persists for students even when strategies are taught in reading Intervention classes. This mixed methods study examined efforts to promote students' ability to independently apply strategies that increase…

Children are on a quest for knowledge. To achieve it, children must integrate separate but related episodes of learning. The theoretical model of memory integration posits that the process is supported by component cognitive abilities. In turn, memory integration predicts accumulation of a knowledge base. We tested this model in two studies (data…

AutoTutor-ARC (adult reading comprehension) is an intelligent tutoring system that uses conversational agents to help adult learners improve their comprehension skills. However, in such a system, not all lessons and items optimally serve the same purposes. In this paper, we describe a method for classifying items that are "instructive,…

Children are on a quest for knowledge. To achieve it, children must integrate separate but related episodes of learning. The theoretical model of memory integration posits that the process is supported by component cognitive abilities. In turn, memory integration predicts accumulation of a knowledge base. We tested this model in two studies (data…

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are an integral part of the instructional personnel in undergraduate general chemistry courses. Professional development programs for GTAs are well-established across STEM disciplines ranging from two-day to week-long sessions, covering a wide variety of topics, ranging from pedagogy and safety standards to…

Despite its significant role in every level of education, the definition of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics movement, or STEM, has remained elusive, becoming so vaporous as to provide little meaning. As education organizations navigate the STEM institution, they must collectively make sense of its norms, goals, and practices.…

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to determine whether parallel measures of narrative-based listening comprehension and reading comprehension reflected the same construct and yielded comparable scores from a diverse sample of second- and third-grade students. One hundred ten students participated in this study. Method: Three listening…

How prevalent is dyslexia? A definitive answer to this question has been elusive because of the continuous distribution of reading performance and predictors of dyslexia and because of the heterogeneous nature of samples of poor readers. Samples of poor readers are a mixture of individuals whose reading is consistent with or expected based on…

Teachers often encourage students to use test-taking strategies during reading comprehension assessments, but these strategies are not always evidence-based. One common strategy involves teaching students to read the questions before reading an associated passage. Research findings comparing the passage-first (PF) and questions-first (QF)…

This study quantifies second language (L2) knowledge of aural single words and aural phrasal verbs (PVs) and investigates their relationship with L2 listening comprehension. An aural first language (L1) meaning recall test format was used to measure knowledge of 81 single-word and 81 PV target items (with equivalent frequencies of occurrence)…

Little evidence is available regarding the differential impact of reading versus reading and writing on multiple source comprehension. The present study aims to: (1) compare the inferential comprehension performance of students in reading versus reading/synthesis conditions; (2) explore the impact of performing the tasks on paper versus on screen…

Emphasis on literacy within middle and high school classrooms is not new; however, there is a shortage of research exploring literacy across disciplines, especially in a geography classroom. Using a holistic case study, we investigated how one first-year geography teacher integrated multiple active literacy strategies within her instruction.…

Background: There is a growing evidence base for the importance of spatial reasoning for the development of mathematics. However, the extent to which this translates into practice is unknown. Aims: We aimed to understand practitioners' perspectives on their understanding of spatial reasoning, the extent to which they recognize and implement…

Given young children's frequent use of the internet and the expectations formulated in policy documents such as the Swedish national curriculum, teachers need to promote critical awareness about information found online, even in the earliest years of schooling. Responding to the need for more information about how first-graders understand the…