Reading instruction should help kids to develop metacognition when they’re reading, and involving students in self-evaluation can be an important part of instruction towards that goal.
Texts that are challenging and that represent a wide range of genres and content areas need to play much bigger roles in comprehension instruction. These texts expose students to rich content and vocabulary and can help build knowledge.
Teaching reading comprehension means improving students’ abilities to read other texts on their own with greater understanding. A 2025 report looks at 66 studies to better understand recent trends in reading comprehension instruction.
New research indicates that the processing of texts on screens is faster and shallower than on paper. Students don’t comprehend digital text as well as they do paper text — but they can learn how to get the most out of these texts, with the right supports.
