Recently I was contacted by an individual seeking spiritual counsel about, among other things, a strange phenomenon he was experiencing. Per my usual policy, I’m not going to identify this individual.

It seems like an obvious statement: It’s easier for readers to understand a text they already know something about. But this commonsense idea, backed by research, has big implications for reading ...

Adeyemi Stembridge, Ph.D., provides technical assistance for school improvement with a specific focus on equity. He works with districts around the country to identify root causes of achievement gaps ...

The purpose of going to school is to learn, but students may find certain topics difficult to understand if they don't have the necessary background knowledge. This is one of the conclusions of a ...

The study was published in the journal -- Psychological Science. “Background knowledge plays a key role in students’ reading comprehension. Our findings show that if students don’t have sufficient ...

Educators don’t need to choose between building students’ knowledge and teaching reading comprehension strategies. The question isn’t whether to teach strategies—it’s how to do it and when. “Are we ...

The latest in our series on the achievement gap. Could the problem be the nation’s focus on teaching skills rather than actual knowledge? Sarah Webb, fifth and eighth grade English Langue Learner ...

In classrooms across the country, teachers are rethinking how students build reading comprehension — not just how they decode words, but how they make meaning from text. That shift is part of a larger ...

The Hechinger Report covers one topic: education. Sign up for our newsletters to have stories delivered to your inbox. Consider becoming a member to support our nonprofit journalism. Editor’s note: ...