What do we know about reading comprehension-and what do we need to know in order to improve it and help all students become confident readers? This urgently needed research volume is the only cohesive, up-to-date compendium of knowledge about the behavioral, neurobiological, and genetic components of reading comprehension. More than 40 top researchers from multiple disciplines present the latest findings on comprehension, addressing theory and science, effective instruction and intervention, and priorities for future research that will move the field forward.

• the trajectory of reading skill development
• causes of comprehension problems during reading
• ideal characteristics of effective reading comprehension assessments
• new analytic techniques that examine individual differences in comprehension skills
• groundbreaking behavioral genetics studies examining reading comprehension
• distinctions between oral comprehension and reading comprehension
• how various text types interact with the cognitive and neurobiological profiles of children with varying comprehension abilities
• interventions for diverse learners who struggle with comprehension
• intensive interventions for adolescents with dyslexia

About the Author:


Nicole Landi, Ph.D., Faculty Member, Yale Child Study; Director of EEG Research, Haskins Laboratories, Haskins Laboratories and Yale University, 300 George Street, Suite 900, New Haven, CT 06511.
Dr. Landi received her doctorate in psychology and cognitive neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005. Her research examines the acquisition and development of reading and language as well as individual differences in reading and language skill. She studies these issues using multiple methodologies including functional magnetic resonance imaging and event-related potentials. By examining early school age children, adolescents, and young adults, her research spans a broad range of reading and language development.

Adam M. Larson, Ph.D., Research Associate, Visual Cognition Lab, Kansas State University, 492 Bluemont Hall, Manhattan, KS 66502.
Dr. Larson is currently a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Lester Loschkyâ (TM)s Visual Cognition Lab at Kansas State University. His research investigates scene perception and eye movements in order to understand how these early cognitive processes can contribute to our comprehension of dynamic actions and events.

Haiying Li, M.S., Research Associate, Department of Psychology and Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, 202 Psychology Building, Memphis, TN 38152-3230.
Ms. Liâ (TM)s primary research interests are in language, reading, discourse processing, cognitive science, and computational linguistics. She is investigating language and discourse in English and other languages, both from the perspective of psychological mechanisms and automated computer analyses. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Memphis.

Lester C. Loschky, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Kansas State University, 471 Bluemont Hall, 1100 Mid-Campus Drive, Manhattan, KS 66506-5302.
Dr. Loschky studies scene perception and visual cognition, including the interrelationships between eye movements, attention, and memory for real-world scenes. He also studies processes in the comprehension of text, picture stories, and--most recently--film.

Heikki J. Lyytinen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Developmental Neuropsychology, University of Jyväskylä, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Dr. Lyytinen is the principal investigator of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia, which has revealed how to identify children in need of support in their reading acquisition. This work motivated him to lead the development process of Graphogame technology, which has now initiated worldwide efforts to provide mobile learning game-based support globally via the Grapholearn Initiative.

Joseph P. Magliano, Ph.D., Presidential Research Professor, Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60134.
Dr. Maglianoâ (TM)s research interests focus on understanding comprehension processes and the extent to which they are similar and different across modalities of experiences (e.g., text, film, and graphic narratives). He has also focused on understanding how to assess and help struggling college students with respect to academic literacy skills.

W. Einar Mencl, Ph.D., Director, Neuroimaging Research, Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, New Haven, CT 06515.
Dr. Mencl received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Dartmouth College in 1994. His expertise is in experimental design and analysis of functional and brain imaging data and applying techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalography toward the understanding of reading development and reading disability. Other interests include auditory perception, music perception, and multivariate analysis of brain activation patterns.

Amanda C. Miller, Ph.D., Fellow, Department of Special Education and Child Studies, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, 110 Magnolia Circle, Nashville, TN 37203.
Dr. Millerâ (TM)s research explores the cognitive underpinnings of individual differences in reading and listening comprehension.

Robin D. Morris, Ph.D., Regents Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010.
Dr. Morris is Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation and Regentâ (TM)s Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University. He holds joint appointments in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education and the Neurosciences Institute. His scholarly and clinical work focuses on the biological and environmental factors that influence academic, attentional, and social development in children and adolescents. His current research is focused on interventions for dyslexia and reading disabilities, mitochondrial disease, using technology to assist in reading development, and the neuroimaging of the typical and atypically developing brain.

Chelsea Myers, B.S., Lab Manager, Laboratory for Educational Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Avenue, Box 0945-F, San Francisco, CA 94143.
Ms. Myers is the lab manager at the Laboratory for Educational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. She graduated from St. Michaelâ (TM)s College in Vermont with degrees in biology and Spanish. She plans to return to graduate school in the near future to further pursue her interest in educational neuropsychology, especially as it relates to the biological, neurological, and psychological underpinnings of developmental and learning disorders.

Tenaha Oâ (TM)Reilly, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road, MS 13E, Princeton, NJ 08541.
Dr. Oâ (TM)Reillyâ (TM)s research interests are in assessment, reading comprehension, reading strategies, metacognition, and the role of background knowledge in understanding and learning. He is currently involved in projects aimed at designing and evaluating innovative measures of reading comprehension for students in pre-K--12 settings.

Charles Perfetti, Ph.D., Director, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 Oâ (TM)Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.
Dr. Perfettiâ (TM)s central research interest is in the cognitive science of language and reading processes, including lower- and higher-level processes and the nature of reading ability. His current research program addresses several related issues, including the nature of reading skill, the role of word knowledge in comprehension, comparative studies of reading across writing systems, and second-language learning, including studies of adults and children and using behavioral, electrophysiological, and functional magnetic resonance imaging methods.

Stephen A. Petrill, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 1830 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210.
Dr. Petrillâ (TM)s research focuses on the genetic, neurobiological, cognitive, and environmental underpinnings of dyslexia, language impairment, and math disabilities. In particular, he examines how these approaches explain the comorbidity and independence among different types of learning difficulties and their relationship to the typical range.

Jonathan L. Preston, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, Suite 900, New Haven, CT 06511.
Dr. Preston is a speech-language pathologist with clinical and research expertise on speech-sound disorders, neuroscience, and the phonological bases of literacy. He conducts basic and applied research on speech, language and literacy development, and disorders.

Kenneth R. Pugh, Ph.D., President, Director of Research, and Senior Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, Suite 900, New Haven, Connecticut 06511.

Kenneth R. Pugh--in addition to his positions at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale University and University of Connecticut affiliated interdisciplinary institute that is dedicated to the investigation of the biological bases of language--holds positions at the University of Connecticut, Yale University, and the Yale University School of Medicine. He directs the Yale Reading Center, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the International Dyslexia Association and the Rodin Remediation Academy in Stockholm, and has served as a peer reviewer at the National Institutes of Health and as a panel member at the National Research Council of the National Academies. His research in cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics focuses on the neurobiology of typical and atypical language and reading development.

Erik D. Reichle, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Centre for Visual Cognition, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Dr. Reichleâ (TM)s research uses computational modeling and eye-movement experiments to understand how word identification, attention, and visual and oculomotor constraints jointly determine when and where readers move their eyes.

Jay G. Rueckl, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Haskins Laboratories; Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Connecticut; Head of the Psychology Departmentâ (TM)s Perception-Action-Cognition Division; Inaugural Director, University of Connecticut Cognitive Science Program, 300 George Street, Suite 900, New Haven, CT 06511.
Dr. Rueckl was trained as an experimental psychologist, and his research combines behavioral methods with both neuroimaging and computational modeling. His primary research focus concerns word reading and its neural bases, and its main goal is to understand how linguistic experience and a universal learning mechanism jointly determine the commonalities and differences that are observed both between and within linguistic communities.

John P. Sabatini, Ph.D., Principle Research Scientist, Research and Development Division, Global Assessment Center, Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road, MS 13E, Princeton, NJ 08541.
Dr. Sabatiniâ (TM)s research interests and expertise are in reading literacy development and disabilities, assessment, and educational technology. He is lead editor of two books on innovation in reading comprehension assessment and is currently the principal investigator of a grant to develop pre-K--12 comprehension assessments. He also serves as co-investigator on projects that explore the reading processes of adolescents, English language learners, and students with reading-based disabilities.

Brett Miller, Ph.D., Program Director, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), 6100 Executive Boulevard, Suite 4B05, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

Brett Miller oversees the Reading, Writing, and Related Learning Disabilities research portfolio at the National Institutes of Health (NICHD), which focuses on developing and supporting research and training initiatives to increase knowledge relevant to the development of reading and written-language abilities for learners with and without disabilities. Dr. Miller also codirects the Language, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy Research Program, which focuses on language development and psycholinguistics from infancy through early adulthood; bilingualism and/or second-language acquisition; and reading in bilingual and/or English-language-learning children and youth.

Laurie E. Cutting, Ph.D., Patricia and Rodes Hart Endowed Chair and Professor, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

Laurie Cutting holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Special Education, Psychology, Radiology, and Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, is a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories, and has an adjunct faculty position at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of Neurology. Her research focuses on educational neuroscience--in particular, the neurobiological and behavioral underpinnings of reading, oral language, and dyslexia.

Peggy McCardle, Ph.D., M.P.H., Owner, Peggy McCardle Consulting, LLC

Peggy McCardle is a private consultant and an affiliated research scientist at Haskins Laboratories. She is the former chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), U.S. National Institutes of Health, where she also directed the Language, Bilingualism, and Biliteracy Research Program and developed various literacy initiatives. Dr. McCardle is a linguist, a former speech-language pathologist, and, in her remote past, a classroom teacher. Her publications address various aspects of public health and developmental psycholinguistics. The recipient of various awards for her work in federal government, including a 2013 NICHD Mentor Award, she also was selected in 2013 to receive the Einstein Award from The Dyslexia Foundation. Her publications address various aspects of public health and developmental psycholinguistics (e.g., language development, bilingualism, reading, learning disabilities) . Dr. McCardle has taught scientific and technical writing and has extensive experience developing and coediting volumes and thematic journal issues.

Suzanne M. Adlof, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Williams Brice Building, 6th Floor, 1621 Greene Street, Columbia, SC 29208.
Dr. Adlofâ (TM)s research examines developmental relationships between oral and written language skills in typically developing children and children with language and reading difficulties. The overarching goals of this research program are to improve the early identification of language and reading difficulties and to develop effective treatments to improve academic outcomes.

Katinka Beker, MSc., Brain and Education Lab, Department of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK Leiden, the Netherlands.
Ms. Beker works as a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Drs. Paul van den Broek and Linda van Leijenhorst in the Brain and Education Lab at the Department of Education and Child Studies at Leiden University and studies the development of cognitive processes that are involved in reading comprehension and learning from text.

Sabrina L. Benedict, M.Ed., Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203.
Ms. Benedict received a B.A. from Boston College and an M.Ed. in special education from the Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. As a graduate research assistant in Vanderbiltâ (TM)s Education and Brain Sciences Research Lab she implemented phonics interventions, helped develop a morphological reading assessment, and researched how it predicted decoding ability. She currently works as a special education high school teacher in Los Angeles.

Allison Broadwater, B.A., Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203.
Ms. Broadwater is currently pursuing her M.Ed. in child studies with a focus on cognitive development and education from the Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University. She works as a research assistant in Vanderbiltâ (TM)s Education and Brain Sciences Research Lab, where she focuses on the behavioral assessment of reading ability in children.

Scott S. Burns, M.S., Senior Research Imaging Specialist, Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University, PMB 40, 230 Appleton Place Nashville, TN 37203-5721.
Mr. Scott oversees the MRI side of the Education and Brain Science Research Lab (EBRL). He is interested in developing automated methods for processing MR data to reduce human error, increase reliability, and ultimately improve the science produced by the EBRL.

Kate Cain, Ph.D., Reader, Department of Psychology, Fylde College, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, UK.
Dr. Cainâ (TM)s research focuses on the development of reading and listening comprehension in children and, in particular, how language skills, knowledge, and cognitive resources are related to reading and listening comprehension problems.

Hugh W. Catts, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Speech-Language- Hearing, University of Kansas, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045.
Dr. Catts is the past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Dyslexia Association. His research focuses on the relationship between language and reading development and disorders.

James A. Clinton, M.S., Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, Psychology-Computer Science Building, Room 400, DeKalb, IL 60015.
Mr. Clinton is a doctoral candidate in the Cognitive and Instructional Psychology program at Northern Illinois University under the guidance of Joseph P. Magliano. His research interests focus on comprehension processes that differ between narrative text and film adaptations of the same narrative. He is also interested in the perceptual processes that guide the comprehension of visual narratives.

Donald L. Compton, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Special Education Department, Peabody College, P.O. Box 228, 110 Magnolia Circle, 313 OMC, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

Donald L. Compton is a professor and chair of the Special Education Department and a John F. Kennedy Center Investigator at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. His research involves modeling individual differences in the development of children's reading skills and the identification of children with reading disabilities.

Carol McDonald Connor, Ph.D., Senior Learning Scientist, Learning Sciences Institute, P.O. Box 872111, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85278-2111.
Carol Connor is a professor of psychology at Arizona State University and a distinguished research associate at the Florida Center for Reading Research. Her research focuses on examining the links between young children's language and their literacy development with the goal of illuminating reasons for the perplexing difficulties that children who are atypical and diverse learners have with developing basic and advanced literacy skills. Most recently, her research interests have focused on children's learning in the classroom--from preschool through fifth grade--and developing technology and interventions to improve teacher efficacy and students' reading outcomes. Awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2008), the Society for Research in Child Development, Early Career Award (2009), and the Richard Snow Award (APA, 2008), she is the principal investigator for studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences, and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. She is also Editor of the Journal for Research in Educational Effectiveness (Impact Factor 3.15) and an Associate Editor for Child Development (Impact Factor 4.1).

Qiuyun Fan, M.S., Research Assistant, Education and Brain Sciences Research Lab, Vanderbilt University, PMB 328, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN, 37203.
Ms. Fan received an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2011. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. under the advisory of Adam W. Anderson, from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Laurie E. Cutting, from the Peabody College of Education and Human Development. Her research interests include diffusion tensor MRI, high-angular resolution diffusion imaging, and the investigation of neurocorrelates of reading ability using imaging techniques.

Stephen J. Frost, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Haskins Laboratories, 300 George, Suite 900, New Haven, CT 06511.
Dr. Frostâ (TM)s research integrates cognitive and neurobiological measures of language processing in individuals across a broad age and skill range to elucidate the network that supports skilled reading, as well as the neurological adaptation associated with developing reading skill.

Jennifer K. Gilbert, Ph.D., Research Associate, Department of Special Education, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College Box 228, 110 Magnolia Circle, Nashville, TN 32703.
Dr. Gilbertâ (TM)s research involves the application of advanced statistical modeling to reading data.

Art Graesser, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, 202 Psychology Building, Memphis, TN 38152-3230.
Dr. Graesser is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis and is a senior research fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. His primary research interests are in cognitive science, discourse processing, and the learning sciences. More specific interests include knowledge representation, question asking and answering, tutoring, text comprehension, inference generation, conversation, reading, education, memory, emotions, computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, human-- computer interaction, and learning technologies with animated conversational agents.

Elena L. Grigorenko, Ph.D.,
Dr. Grigorenko received her Ph.D. in general psychology from Moscow State University, Russia, and her Ph.D. in developmental psychology and genetics from Yale University USA and her re-specialization in clinical (forensic) psychology from Fielding University, USA .Currently, Dr. Grigorenko has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books. She has received multiple professional awards for her work and has received funding for her research from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Agency for International Development, Cure Autism Now, Foundation for Child Development, American Psychological Foundation, and other federal and private sponsoring organizations. Dr. Grigorenko has worked with children and their families in the United States as well as in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, the Gambia, and Zambia), India, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

Anne Helder, M.Sc., Brain and Education Lab, Department of Education and Child Studies, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK Leiden, the Netherlands.
Ms. Helder is currently a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Drs. Paul van den Broek and Linda van Leijenhorst in the Brain and Education Lab at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She studies developmental and individual differences in neurocognitive processes involved in reading comprehension.

Fumiko Hoeft, Ph.D., Director, Laboratory for Educational Neuroscience, and Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, 401 Parnassus Avenue, Box 0945-F, San Francisco, CA 94143.
Dr. Hoeftâ (TM)s research focuses on circuit-based approaches to the understanding of reading and dyslexia. She is particularly interested in the neurobiological basis of different phenotypes/subtypes of dyslexia and early risk factors that predispose and protective factors that prevent children from developing dyslexia.

Gina R. Kuperberg, Ph.D., Director, NeuroCognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155; and Director, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital (East), Harvard Medical School, Psychiatry CNY-2, Building 149, 13th Street, Room 2629, Charlestown, MA 02129.
Dr. Kuperberg directs the NeuroCognition Laboratory, which spans the Department of Psychology, Tufts University, and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Her lab studies the neural basis of normal and abnormal language processing using multimodal neuroimaging techniques.