Promoting Active Reading Strategies to Improve Students' Understanding of Science

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The problem addressed by this project regards high-school students' understanding of and ability to learn from difficult science texts. The first purpose of this project is to examine high school students' and teachers' knowledge about metacognitive reading strategies to better ascertain the need for strategy interventions, as well as teachers' ability to provide such training to students. The second purpose is to compare the effectiveness of three reading interventions and to thereby identify more effective methods for improving students' comprehension skills. The third purpose is to determine whether the benefits of reading interventions depend on students' skills, knowledge, or cultural environment. The fourth purpose is to develop a computerized training program that adaptively assigns a student to an appropriate training regime, and interactively provides reading training. Hence, this project bridges the two focus areas of the IERI initiative concerning reading skill acquisition and students' understanding of increasingly complex scientific ideas. Within these areas, this project will address issues regarding instructional practices in reading, the role of teacher learning and performance on student learning, optimal interventions for students at-risk of reading or academic failure, the development of better assessment techniques of knowledge and skill, and the use of technology to improve assessment and learning.