A Research Agenda for Improving Reading Comprehension

In this report, the RRSG characterizes reading comprehension in a way that the group believes will help organize research and development activities in the domain of reading comprehension. In Chapter Two, we provided a working definition for reading comprehension and outlined a framework including three core elements—reader, text, and activity—which are situated in a larger sociocultural context. Chapter Three elaborated on the elements by describing what we know about variation within them. In this chapter, the RRSG proposes a research agenda that prioritizes three specific domains of reading comprehension for future research: instruction, teacher preparation, and assessment. In making these proposals, the RRSG emphasizes the need for research that builds on what is already known, that will contribute to better theories of reading development, and that will produce knowledge that is usable both in classrooms and in policymaking arenas. To that end, this chapter describes what is already known within each of these three domains and describes areas for future work.