Featured Articles
Flattening the Developmental Staircase: Lexical Complexity Progression in Elementary Reading Texts Across Six Decades
This study examined lexical complexity patterns in elementary reading textbooks across four pivotal decades (1957, 1974, 1995, 2014) to understand how educational reforms have influenced developmental progressions in reading materials. The study analyzed a corpus of 320,000 words from one…
Scaffolded texts and comprehension
Abstract: Automaticity in recognizing the words in a text is fundamental to comprehension. If the number of words readers need to stop and decode exceeds their ability to retain their understanding of a narrative’s plot or an expository text’s description,…
“CATERing” to Readers’ Needs with AI: Innovation in Text Design and Instruction
In this article, the authors describe an innovation that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create texts tailored to the interests, strengths, and learning needs of individual readers.
What the Quasi-Regular Orthography of English Means for Bringing Students to Proficient Reading
Proficiency in reading demands automaticity in connecting letters and sounds, necessitating systematic phonics instruction. However, the complexity of English orthography and its morphology means that becoming proficient in reading takes time and requires substantial exposure to text.
Enhancing Opportunities for Decoding and Knowledge Building through Beginning Texts
Ensuring effective texts for student reading acquisition is a shared goal. This paper addresses the efficacy of decodable and leveled texts, their word features, and outcomes of reorganizing texts by vowel patterns and topics. Sparse evidence supports one text type’s…
Reading Research Snapshots
Unpacking automaticity: Scaffolded texts and comprehension
In this review, Freddy Hiebert examines the standard intervention for secondary students lacking automaticity—repeated oral reading—and the limited evidence for its impact on silent reading comprehension. She then presents an alternative approach using texts where the core 2,500 most frequent word families in written language comprise the majority of content.
The Presence and Progression of Rare Vocabulary in Texts Across Elementary Grades and Between Genres: How Rare Words Increase the Challenge of Reading and What We Can Do About It
The authors examined a set of rare words from narrative and expository texts aimed at Grades 1, 3, and 5. The purpose of the study was to determine the proportions of rare words that occurred across grade levels and genres, as well as to examine the features of rare words that occurred in these elementary…
Text types and their relation to efficacy in beginning reading interventions: The effects of decodable and non-decodable texts in early reading instruction
Supporting early readers means not only selecting texts at an appropriate level but also selecting texts of the appropriate text type. While necessary, decodable texts may not be sufficient for the full development of reading skills. Texts without phonetic control—non-decodable texts—may also provide a benefit.
Making sure the books check every box: Preservice teachers learning to select texts for reading instruction
To be prepared to teach reading, teachers must learn what makes a text complex: how text features contribute to text complexity. They must also learn how to locate and select appropriate texts for various pedagogies and know how to differentiate based on individual readers’ needs and interests.
Fostering Hope with Children’s Literature
Today, in a world of instantaneous communication, children and young people can be confronted with images and information that are troubling and hard to understand. “Fostering Hope with Children’s Literature” is an essay that draws on scholarship about how literature can give children and young people insight into how people have found unexpected sources of…
Articles
Research articles and books on four foundational foci within the science of reading are available for free download at TextProject:
- Beginning Readers: Instruction and Texts
- Reading Volume and Silent Reading Stamina
- Text Complexity
- Vocabulary and Knowledge
Books
Our book collection at TextProject includes ebooks that are being published for the first time and also reissued classics.