This study explores digital and paper reading processes and outcomes for 371 fifth to eighth graders completing a reading task similar to standardized testing. Results showed students highlighted and annotated more when reading the paper versus digital text. Also, reading on paper versus digitally was slightly supportive of reading comprehension for the longer section of text. For behaviors, digital highlighting and looking back at the paper text were supportive of reading comprehension, whereas paper highlighting was negatively related, likely because paper highlighting tended to occur often outside of important areas of the text. Paper and digital annotating, online dictionary use, and digital look-back did not link to comprehension, when controlling for other covariates. Links to theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Understanding how to support student reading comprehension has long been a goal for education research. Yet no existing literature review links interactional scaffolding, defined as the responsive in-person support an expert reader offers to a novice, and reading comprehension. This review employed theories of scaffolding and reading comprehension to establish a theoretical framework, used an iterative search process to account for the terminological diversity of research on interactional scaffolding, and coded the resulting 57 studies according to their research designs and findings. Conclusions about research designs indicate that the observational studies predominate with fewer experimental, mixed methods, and correlational studies. In addition, study populations are overwhelmingly in K-5 settings. Synthesizing the studies' findings produced four themes: (a) diversity in taxonomies of scaffolding, (b) a focus on contingency, (c) ways contextual and mediational resources shape scaffolding, and (d) potential pitfalls when scaffolding does not go as planned. Suggestions for future research include addressing gaps in research designs, extending and refining existing scaffolding taxa, linking specific forms of scaffolding across contexts to reading outcomes, advancing understanding of the mediational means that underpin comprehension, and deepening knowledge of developmental trajectories for comprehension scaffolding.

A B S T R A C TAlthough much research exists on scaffolding in reading instruction, confusion about the construct persists. In this commentary inspired by a recent article in Reading Research Quarterly, we argue for the importance of contingency-that is, responsiveness to student thinking-in reading comprehension scaffolding. We begin by defining two sometimes nebulous constructs: scaffolding and comprehension. We then argue that the dynamic, contextual, and affective nature of comprehension calls for a focus on contingency in scaffolding interactions because the requisite assumptions of preplanned scaffolding can obscure students' emergent comprehension. To focus on contingency, three implications for research follow. First, research designs could separate interactional scaffolding from planned scaffolding so as to directly investigate the construct. Second, collaboratively analyzing video data of scaffolding interactions is an effective tool for teacher educators and researchers. Finally, researchers should consider refining, building on, or comparing their findings with existing frameworks to illuminate both the transferable and the idiosyncratic dimensions of contingent scaffolding. This could also include studying students' discursive moves in addition to teachers' utterances, which might offer a new lens on how teachers adjust scaffolds in moment-to-moment interactions. These implications lay a foundation for a research agenda that goes beyond assumptions about students built into planned scaffolding and tackles the challenges of contingent comprehension scaffolding. R ecently in Reading Research Quarterly, Rodgers, D'Agostino, Harmey, Kelly, and Brownfield (2016) declared that even though scaffolding is a widely used construct in reading research, "there is no consensus…about how to operationalize [it]" (p. 345). Even without a consensus, Rodgers and colleagues advanced the field's understanding of scaffolding by focusing on its contingency, that is, its responsiveness to student thinking (van de Pol, Volman, & Beishuizen, 2010). Specifically, using a contingency framework developed by Wood (2003), the Rodgers et al. team coded over 1,000 instructional interactions according to teachers' contingent decisions about when to give help (temporal contingency), how much help to give (instructional contingency), and what to emphasize (domain contingency) and found that domain-contingent scaffolding was associated with improved reading. By conducting this study across teachers sharing the same curriculum (Reading Recovery), the authors separated the effects of contingent scaffolding from those of the fixed curricular framework. This design choice launches our commentary.

BackgroundLate secondary‐level students (those in their final 2 years of secondary school) preparing for the demands of university and careers increasingly face texts written in academic language. Unfortunately, few intervention studies show how instruction can improve their reading achievement.MethodsThe 152 student participants (16–17 years old, U.S. Grade 11) were randomly assigned either to small groups receiving scaffolded instruction while reading complex texts or to a business‐as‐usual control condition. The intervention instruction included tutors supporting students' paraphrasing skills while scaffolding their academic language. Measures included pre‐test and post‐tests of standardised reading comprehension and tutors' reports of the scaffolds they used in each session. Multi‐level regression modelling estimated the causal effect of the intervention (RQ1) and the associations between the types of scaffolds and the comprehension outcome (RQ2).ResultsFor RQ1, assignment to the intervention significantly predicted a 1.20‐point increase in a standardised test widely used for entrance into U.S. universities, which includes a reading comprehension subtest reading scores (d = 0.16). No significant interactions were found by pre‐test scores, race, eligibility for school lunch subsidy or learning disabilities. For RQ2, the scaffolds measure explained 11% of the outcome variance, suggesting that scaffolding contributes significantly to comprehension outcomes. Specifically, rereading scaffolds significantly predicted lower post‐test scores, while syntax and structure scaffolds predicted higher post‐test scores.ConclusionsThis intervention presents a model for future interventions with this understudied population. A focus on complex texts with scaffolding designed to account for the complexity of academic language may be effective in supporting late secondary students' reading comprehension. In addition, certain kinds of scaffolding may be differentially effective if educators help students unpack complicated syntax and attend to the structural features of complex texts.

The demand for evidence‐based instructional practices has driven a large supply of research on adolescent literacy. Documenting this supply, Baye, Inns, Lake, and Slavin’s 2019 article in Reading Research Quarterly synthesized far more studies, with far more rigorous methodology, than had ever been collected before. What does this mean for practice? Inspired by this article, I investigated how this synthesis compared with the 2008 U.S. Institute of Education Sciences practice guide for adolescent literacy. I also include two contemporary documents for context: Herrera, Truckenmiller, and Foorman’s (2016) review and the U.K. Education Endowment Foundation’s 2019 practice guide for secondary schools. I first examine how these documents define adolescent, reading, and evidence, and propose more inclusive definitions. I then compare their respective evidence bases, finding that the quality and quantity of evidence have dramatically changed. Only one of the 34 studies in the 2008 U.S. practice guide met Baye et al.’s inclusion criteria in 2019, and the average sample size in Baye et al.’s studies was 22 times as large as those in the 2008 U.S. practice guide. I also examine the potential implications for a new practice guide’s instructional recommendations and comment on the expansion of research in technology, disciplinary literacy, and writing—topics scarcely covered in the 2008 U.S. practice guide but which have been extensively researched since then. Finally, I call for revision of the U.S. practice guide and the establishment of standing committees on adolescent literacy to help educators translate the latest research findings into updated practices.