| Even at the earliest stages, TextProject texts support knowledge acquisition as well as word recognition. Some beginning reading programs consist of texts with sentences like: “Pam had a big fig. Nan had a wig.” At TextProject, we believe that students deserve better than repetitive nonsense. |
| This approach is validated by a recent meta-analysis by Young-Suk Kim and Yucheng Cao. They found that teaching content knowledge improves reading comprehension—meaning your science and social studies lessons are literacy lessons. |
The “Game-Changer” in their research was Knowledge Activation. When teachers prompted students to connect existing knowledge to new texts, comprehension gains were substantial (effect size 0.66). Simply building knowledge without teaching students how to access it showed a less rigorous effect (0.19).
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