Welcome to the Reading Research Recap!
I am Dr. Neena Saha, Research Advisor at MetaMetrics and founder and CEO of Elemeno, now a part of MetaMetrics. My focus is to bridge the research-practice gap so that educators can access real-time tools to support reading success. To expand the understanding of research to inform teaching and learning strategies, I put together this monthly compendium of the relevant and must-read research that impacts the reading and learning landscape. I offer research highlights in digestible summary slices. Hopefully, the data and findings you see here are useful to you as researchers, educators, and district and edtech leaders.
Leveraging What Students Know to Make Sense of Texts: What the Research Says About Prior Knowledge Activation
Video Summary
Everyone seems to be talking about background knowledge lately, but what does the research actually say about activating prior knowledge? This paper* covers exactly that and I summarize it below! However, be sure to watch the video if you’re interested in bonus content about AI tools** for finding, summarizing and synthesizing educational research!
Background
Prior knowledge is a critical component of reading comprehension, which researchers have described as: “the interaction of new information with old knowledge.”
But, even though we know background knowledge is critical (and has “substantial theoretical, empirical, and public support”), there is not enough attention being paid to how to activate and use that knowledge.
Rationale
Since the last systematic review of prior knowledge was in 1999, and because there have been no reviews focused on prior knowledge activation in relation to reading comprehension, the authors decided to investigate the following questions:
- How has research defined “prior knowledge activation”?
- What knowledge activation techniques have been researched?
- Which techniques are associated with positive, negative, neutral, or mixed student outcomes?
Methods
They searched the literature for peer-reviewed studies written in English, covering grades K-16 and ended up with 54 studies.
- Nearly half of the studies were with undergraduates
- 20 studies were with high schoolers
- 18 in middle school, and 20 in upper elementary
- Only 2 studies were conducted in lower elementary students (more research is definitely needed in this area!).
The studies took place across multiple different domains (social studies, science, etc.).
Results
- Knowledge activation was beneficial before, during and after reading, not just before reading.
- Activating knowledge in pairs or groups was beneficial.
- Correcting misconceptions in prior knowledge is critical, but educators need to be careful to distinguish between true misconceptions versus a difference of perspective.
- Definitions of prior knowledge and activation are vague in the research.
- They found 30 different techniques for activating prior knowledge, which could be grouped into 8 categories. (Note. There is a wonderful summary of the studies within each category in the paper.)
- The most common technique was asking open-ended questions before reading.
- The results on student performance were mixed within the 8 categories, and depended on: student age, amount and accuracy of extant knowledge, and degree of scaffolding. For example, “…younger students seemed to benefit from more structured knowledge activation prompts, as opposed to open-ended scaffolds (e.g., Gurlitt & Renkl, 2008; Hattan & Alexander, 2021).”
- Even though some of the results were mixed, prior knowledge activation techniques are beneficial:
“Findings from this systematic literature review clearly demonstrate that a broad array of knowledge activation techniques have been empirically investigated and that most led to positive learning outcomes for students.”
Practical “Take-Home” Message for Teachers
As a teacher, incorporate prior knowledge activation techniques into your teaching:
“…prior knowledge activation is a crucial component to help maximize learning and understanding from texts and should not be diminished in conversations that focus predominantly on knowledge building to support comprehension.”
Make sure to check out the paper to see which specific techniques worked for students like yours.
* There is free access with the free, legal Chrome extension Unpaywall installed, or email the authors to get a copy.
** AI tools and news referenced in the video:
- https://elicit.com/
- https://researcher.life/
- https://www.scilynk.com/
- https://scite.ai/
- https://consensus.app/
- https://www.fastcompany.com/90950362/stretch-ai-chatbot-for-teachers
- https://iste.org/ai
- https://huggingface.co/spaces/facehugger92/DWW_bot
Teacher Practices, Attitudes, Training, Professional Development
- “Yes, I Can!” A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Intervention Studies Promoting Teacher Self-Efficacy (open access)
- New and Not-Well-Known Research about Reading Disabilities: Teachers Want to Know
- Learning from failure: A context-informed perspective on RCTs (Open Access)
- Children’s engagement during shared reading of ebooks and paper books: A systematic review
- An Examination of Canadian and American Pre-Service Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs for 21st Century Literacy Instruction
- Exploring Small-Group Reading Instruction for Students at Risk for Reading Difficulties in Kindergarten Classrooms (I will probably cover this one in-depth soon!)
- The Impact of Literacy Coaching on Instructional Practices and Reading Achievement of K-5 Struggling Readers (Dissertation, not yet peer-reviewed)
- Teachers’ Perceptions of Achieving Grade Level Foundational Reading Literacy Skills (Dissertation, not yet peer-reviewed)
Alphabetics, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Decoding & Fluency
- A Meta-Analysis on the Optimal Cumulative Dosage of Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction (open access, in press)
- Development and validation of a rapid online sentence reading efficiency assessment
- Comparing the Efficacy of Virtual Implementation for Two Sight Word Flashcard Interventions
- Integration of Tablets in Phonological Awareness and Phonics Instruction: A Systematic Review
- A Gender Bias in Curriculum-Based Measurement across Content Domains: Insights from a German Study
- Tracing the longitudinal role of orthographic knowledge in spelling development from primary to upper-secondary school (open access)
- vgck versus vack: The contributions of children’s early sub-lexical orthographic knowledge to gains in word reading (open access)
- Does the reading acceleration program improve reading fluency and comprehension in emergent bilingual children?
- The Influence of English Learner Status on Maintenance of Oral Reading Fluency Growth
- The Impact of Small-Group Multisensory Instructional Techniques on Kindergarteners’ Letter Sound Knowledge (Capstone project, not yet peer-reviewed)
Dyslexia, Struggling Readers
- Revisiting the definition of dyslexia
- The Goal to Perform in Readers’ Theater Motivates Boys Who Struggle With Reading (open access)
- Dysgraphia Differs Between Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder and/or Reading Disorder
- Towards a dynamic, comprehensive conceptualization of dyslexia (open access)
- The COVID generation: Online dyslexia treatment equally effective as face-to-face treatment in a Dutch sample
- Rules generalization in children with dyslexia
- The challenge of remote treatment in neuropsychological intervention for reading and spelling in dyslexia: A prospective observational cohort study (open access)
- Understanding the relation between reading and anxiety among upper elementary students with reading difficulties
- A Serious Game to Train Rhythmic Abilities in Children With Dyslexia: Feasibility and Usability Study
- Twice-exceptionality unmasked: A systematic narrative review of the literature on identifying dyslexia in the gifted child (open access)
- A systematic review on the use of technology to enhance the academic achievements of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in language learning
Oral Language, Vocabulary & Comprehension
- Chatbot dialogic reading boosts comprehension for Chinese kindergarteners with higher language skills
- Oral language enrichment in preschool improves children’s language skills: a cluster randomised controlled trial
- Who Said What? An Automated Approach to Analyzing Speech in Preschool Classrooms (preprint, potentially not yet peer-reviewed)
- A Methodological Review on Dynamic Assessment of Reading Comprehension: An Appraisal of the Construct, Consequential and Social Validity (This looks like a preprint, potentially not yet peer-reviewed)
- Read with Me, I will Learn Words: Effects of an Interactive Book Reading Intervention on First Graders’ Expressive Target Vocabulary
- Reading Aloud to Children, Social Inequalities and Vocabulary Development: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial
- Literary Reading on Paper and Screens: Associations Between Reading Habits and Preferences and Experiencing Meaningfulness
- Vocabulary size predicts behavioral problems in emotionally reactive children
- Comparing Reading, Reading-While-Listening, and Listening Comprehension (Dissertation, not yet peer-reviewed)
Writing
- Writing as a Path to the Alphabetic Principle: How Preschoolers Learn that their Own Writing Represents Speech
- Unpacking the relations of transcription and oral language to written composition in kindergarten children
Other
- The Promise of Tutoring for PreK–12 Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence
- On the Science of Reading: How Social Justice, Behavior Analysis, and Literacy Instruction Converge
- Media, Legislation, and the Science of Reading: Understanding Policy Narratives for a Path to Collaboration
- Uses and Misuses of Commercial Reading Assessment: An Applied Framework for Decision Making in Grades K through 6 (open access!)
- How to improve reading and writing skills in primary schools: A comparison between gamification and pen-and-paper training
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