Improving reading comprehension, science domain knowledge, and reading engagement through a first-grade content literacy intervention.

Building Content Knowledge to Boost Comprehension in the Primary Grades

“…Sessions systematically progressed toward teaching students increasingly complex ideas, building on ideas learned from previous sessions. For example, teachers in the intervention by Kim et al (2020) read aloud two books about polar bears in earlier classes, and then in later classes, teachers involved students in researching different Arctic animals to support students to become Arctic animal experts. Texts were presented in conceptually coherent sets.…”

“…Moreover, when students possess broad content knowledge, it is likely that they have developed complex and coherent knowledge structures around multiple topics in science and social studies domains (i.e., deeper conceptual understanding in domains; Gelman & Kalish, 2006), which can facilitate the process of retrieving relevant information and integrating old and new information (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). Given the potential of broad knowledge, cultivating students’ content knowledge should go beyond a specific topic related to a text (e.g., Kim et al, 2020). Because reading comprehension tests in later grades tend to require knowledge of science and social studies topics, broad content knowledge that is built systematically over time, starting with the earliest grades, is necessary (Hwang, in press).…”

“…They reported positive effects of the program on proximal vocabulary and linguistic comprehension, as well as on standardized reading comprehension measures in first‐grade students. Caution must be exercised in drawing conclusions based on the small number of studies, but it is worth mentioning that the advantage of content‐rich ELA programs in supporting students’ comprehension was observed in the lengthiest program (Vitale & Romance, 2012) and the program that replaced traditional literacy instruction, despite its brief implementation (Kim et al, 2020).…”

“…For example, teachers in the intervention by Neuman and Kaefer (2018) explicitly explained meanings of words (e.g., camel , scorpion ) and their relations to higher taxonomic categories (e.g., animals in the desert). In addition to the explicit explanations, teachers in the interventions by Kim et al (2020) and Vitale and Romance (2012) used concept maps to visually show the relations among conceptually connected words (see the supplemental materials in Kim et al., 2020).…”

“…Building content knowledge (i.e., knowledge related to the natural and social world; Connor et al, 2017; Kim et al, 2020) to enhance linguistic comprehension is just beginning to gain traction in the national conversation (Wexler, 2019). The accumulated science of reading clearly points to the necessity of building content knowledge, and there is a growing evidence base on the science of teaching reading through integrated literacy and knowledge‐building supports (e.g., Cervetti, Wright, & Hwang, 2016; Connor et al, 2017; Guthrie, Anderson, Alao, & Rinehart, 1999; Kim et al, 2020; Neuman & Kaefer, 2018; Vitale & Romance, 2012; Williams et al, 2016; Wright & Gotwals, 2017). In current U.S. practice in the primary grades across many large school districts, this has translated into explicitly building both language and knowledge through the use of content‐rich ELA instruction.…”