There are a lot of things that have improved over the past 50 years, but are still far from perfect: Car safety. Solar power uptake. Scores of medical procedures.
Add reading comprehension instruction to the list.
A new from researchers across six different universities finds that English/language arts teachers across grades K-12 aren鈥檛 regularly using what research shows to be the most effective strategies for helping students understand text. But the more recent studies in the analysis suggest that might be changing.
And while reading teachers spend less than a quarter of the class time devoted to reading working on comprehension, that鈥檚 still magnitudes more than the less than 1 percent of time research shows they spent in the 1970s.
鈥淵es, it鈥檚 discouraging,鈥� said Phil Capin, an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the lead author on the study. 鈥淏ut we do have some reasons to think that the amount of time, and the use of evidence-based practices, are increasing.鈥�
Capin and his colleagues set out to understand how much the state of reading comprehension instruction has changed since the late 1970s, when reading researcher Dolores Durkin conducted a large-scale observational study of ELA and social studies instruction in grades 3-6. Durkin found that teachers spent almost no time teaching students how to make sense of the content they were reading.
In the decades since, researchers have published dozens of studies and educator-focused practice guides aimed at helping teachers use proven methods. But as Capin and his colleagues have found, much of this work hasn鈥檛 translated to the classroom.
This disconnect may seem familiar to those who have followed the 鈥渟cience of reading鈥� movement鈥攁n attempt to align instruction in foundational reading skills, such as phonics, to what evidence shows are the methods most likely to help students crack the code of written language.
鈥淲e really focused on making sure that we fixed that. We need to do the same now and turn attention to [comprehension instruction],鈥� said Kelly Cartwright, a professor of early child literacy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte鈥檚 Cato College of Education, who was not involved with the study. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 think of reading as just one thing.
鈥淚鈥檓 encouraged that research-based practices, and just comprehension instruction in general, seem to be increasing,鈥� Cartwright continued. 鈥淏ut I think the overall takeaway is that things haven鈥檛 changed a lot since Durkin鈥檚 study, given how much time and how many resources have been put into reading instruction. 鈥� The Capin study shows us that we have more to do. It鈥檚 a call to action.鈥�
Uneven use of evidence-based practices, spotty implementation
Capin and his colleagues examined 66 studies published between 1980 and 2023 that documented the amount, type, and/or quality of reading comprehension occurring in schools. The set included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies.
Researchers looked for evidence that teachers were using comprehension instruction approaches featured in the Institute of Education Sciences鈥� What Works Clearinghouse guides, a set of research-based recommendations for teachers that include activities such as extended discussion of text and teaching students about how different types of texts are structured. They found some evidence of these practices, but also 鈥渃onsiderable鈥� time spent focused on low-level comprehension questions.
Teachers ask questions about discrete facts in the passage, students give their answers, and then teachers tell students whether they were correct or not. Teachers often didn鈥檛 extend students鈥� thinking, or prompt them to elaborate on their ideas.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not rejecting the value of asking low-level questions鈥� focused on factual recall, said Capin. 鈥淲e鈥檙e saying reading comprehension instruction shouldn鈥檛 end there.鈥�
A little over half of the studies showed teachers developing students鈥� background knowledge related to text as part of their comprehension instruction, while half also showed the use of reading comprehension strategy instruction. Both are evidence-based practices.
But strategy instruction wasn鈥檛 always implemented well. Often, studies observing teachers鈥� lessons found that teachers simply mentioned a strategy, rather than explaining how to use it and why鈥攖he difference, for instance, between telling students to annotate a text vs. modeling how to do it and offering examples.
Further complicating the results, the different studies in the review highlighted evidence of different practices鈥攏ot every study noted whether each approach was present.
For example, about half of all studies didn鈥檛 report whether teachers worked with students to develop word meaning. They might have, but there鈥檚 no way to determine from the results.
鈥淒espite our best efforts, I鈥檓 still not sure we have a clear understanding of what typical reading comprehension instruction looks like,鈥� Capin said.
One general trend emerges, though: Teachers in later studies鈥攖hose conducted after 2000鈥攚ere more likely to use research-based practices.
That moment in time marked a 鈥渟hift in the field toward an evidence-based model of education,鈥� said Cartwright. The National Reading Panel, a group convened at the request of Congress to catalog the evidence behind different approaches to reading instruction, published its report in 2000. Reading First, a federal initiative that required schools to use methods aligned with scientifically based reading research, launched in 2002.
Across all of the studies in Capin and his colleagues鈥� analysis, teachers spent 23 percent of class time on average teaching reading comprehension across grades K-12. That number alone doesn鈥檛 mean much, said Capin, as averages varied across the grade levels. More 鈥渕eaningful,鈥� he said, is the finding across several studies that students didn鈥檛 actually spend that much time reading鈥攂etween 10-15 percent of class time, in some cases.
鈥淭he obvious issue is that it is quite difficult to teach reading comprehension when teachers do not ask students to read text,鈥� the authors write.
Knowledge or strategies? The debate over reading comprehension continues
In the paper, the researchers call for more focus on evidence-based reading comprehension鈥攑otentially through legislative avenues, similar to recently passed state laws around teaching evidence-based foundational skills instruction.
But realizing that solution could be easier said than done, as debates have begun to surface in the field about the best way to teach reading comprehension.
Comprehension strategy instruction has a solid research base. Teacher guides on evidence-based practices from the What Works Clearinghouse recommend teaching students across grade levels how to use these strategies鈥攕teps such as monitoring their own understanding as they read, or visualizing what鈥檚 happening in a story.
Over the past decade, though, another approach has gained traction: using curricula that explicitly builds children鈥檚 knowledge about the world through social studies and science content, in attempts to help them unlock more meaning from the texts they鈥檙e reading. Research shows that students with more world knowledge understand texts better, though there鈥檚 less evidence for the effectiveness of specific curricula.
Some experts in the field say schools shouldn鈥檛 take an either-or approach.
鈥淲e think about education or life in false dichotomies, because it鈥檚 easy to simplify thinking in that way. But it鈥檚 not a knowledge-or-strategies situation,鈥� said Cartwright. 鈥淐hildren cannot comprehend text if they don鈥檛 have the background knowledge from which to make meaning 鈥� but knowing what to do with your knowledge, and with a text to recruit that knowledge to help you comprehend, is also essential.鈥�
Good strategy instruction shows kids how to do that, Cartwright said鈥攆or example, when a teacher models how to marshall evidence from an article to make an argument about its main idea, rather than just telling students to find the main idea.
The latter is the equivalent of telling students they鈥檙e going to practice swimming and then simply throwing them into a pool with no further instruction, she said.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 how children drown, and that鈥檚 how they don鈥檛 learn to comprehend,鈥� she said.
