Informational Comprehension Instruction in the Primary Grades

Nell K. Duke, Principal Investigator

Learning from text is fundamental to participation in democracy, competence in the workplace, and functioning in society. Yet many U.S. citizens have great difficulty learning from text. A large part of addressing this problem must occur in upper elementary, middle, and high school, where learning from text is - or at least should be - a cornerstone of the curriculum. But we should not overlook what can be done to lay a foundation for learning from text in early schooling. How can we better prepare children to learn from text?

In this project, we developed and tested a specific instructional model for developing children's emergent ability to learn from text in grades one and two. This model incorporates best practices for developing informational literacy in young children and may be useful to classroom teachers as well as reading specialists. Results from this study are forthcoming.

Funding for this project was provided by LARC and by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.