Reading Comprehension

Requires Knowledge—
of Words and the World
Scientific Insights into the Fourth-Grade Slump and
the Nation’s Stagnant Comprehension Scores

By E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

W
hile educators have made good progress in teach- study, see “The Fourth-Grade Slump” on page 14.) I de-
ing children to decode (that is, turn print into scribe this drop-off as apparently sudden because there is
speech sounds), it’s disheartening that we still now good evidence that it is there, unmeasured, in earlier
have not overcome the “fourth-grade slump” in reading grades. A large language gap—not just a reading gap—be-
comprehension. We’re finding that even though the vast ma- tween advantaged and disadvantaged students exists also in
jority of our youngest readers can manage simple texts, third-grade, not to mention second, first, and even earlier.
many students—particularly those from low-income fami- Researchers have known about the fourth-grade slump in
lies—struggle when it comes time in grade four to tackle poor children’s reading comprehension for several decades,
more advanced academic texts. but it was only recently, especially in the work of Betty Hart
To help these students, we must fully understand just and Todd Risley, that solid data on children’s early language
where this “fourth-grade slump” comes from. The “slump” development have been available.2 We now believe that read-
was the name that the great reading researcher Jeanne Chall ing tests make the comprehension gap seem much greater in
used to describe the apparently sudden drop-off between fourth grade because the tests used in earlier grades are heav-
third and fourth grade in the reading scores of low-income ily focused on testing early reading skills (like decoding) and
students. In her research, Chall found that low-income stu- do not try to measure the full extent of the vocabulary dif-
dents in the second and third grades tended to score at (and ferences between the groups.
even above) national averages in reading tests and related Yet it would be a mistake to assume that problems with
measures such as spelling and word meaning. But at the comprehension are limited to disadvantaged students. Ac-
fourth grade, low-income students’ scores began a steady cording to the most recent evidence from the National As-
drop that grew steeper as the students moved into the higher sessment of Educational Progress, most students’ reading
grades.1 (For a more detailed discussion of Chall’s landmark comprehension scores remain low despite many years of
concentrated efforts to improve reading instruction.3 Effec-
E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation tive teaching of reading comprehension to all children has
and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the Uni- turned out to be a recalcitrant problem. Now that we have
versity of Virginia. He has written several acclaimed books, in- good programs that teach children to decode text accurately
cluding the bestseller Cultural Literacy: What Every American and fluently, the task of creating programs and methods that
Needs to Know and The Schools We Need and Why We teach students to comprehend text accurately and fluently is
Don’t Have Them, and served as editor of the seven-volume the new frontier in reading research.
Core Knowledge Series, which ranges from What Your Kinder- It’s a challenging problem. The U.S. Department of Edu-
gartner Needs to Know to What Your 6th-Grader Needs to cation is currently soliciting research proposals to help solve
ILLUSTRATED BY MICHAEL GIBBS

Know. The Core Knowledge Foundation is dedicated to the it. That’s a very good sign. With renewed scientific attention
idea that high-quality and equitable elementary education is to this fundamental problem, we can expect real progress in
based on a common core of learning. The Foundation develops equity and in student achievement—some day. Meanwhile,
curricula, conducts workshops for teachers, and supports the we already know things about reading comprehension that
growing network of Core Knowledge schools. have immediate implications for teachers. I will try to sum-

10 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003

marize some of the most important findings and their impli- understanding would still be less than adequate. By having
cations for classroom practice. to focus on the sounds, turn them into French words and
subsequently into English ones, you tend to lose track of the
I. A Growing Scientific Consensus connections between one sentence and another, and be-
For most of my scholarly life (going back to my first techni- tween groups of sentences. You are in the same position as a
cal publication on the subject in 1960) my research has been child who has to translate consciously and slowly from print
concerned with the nature of text comprehension: How do to sound. Things disappear from your mind before you have
we know we have correctly understood a text? Is reading a a chance to ponder the significance of what is being said. In
displaced version of ordinary oral communication? My ac- slowly translating from French to English, you have been
tive interest in relating that subject to student achievement handicapped by the severe limits of what cognitive scientists
and educational equity dates to the ’70s when I began to call your “short-term memory” or “working memory.”
study some of the advances being made in cognitive science I vividly remember when I first learned about the severe
and psycholinguistics (the study of how our minds produce limits of human working memory and their importance in
and comprehend language spoken and written). Now, after communication. It was in a wonderful book called The Psy-
several decades of researching this difficult subject of reading chology of Communication by the distinguished cognitive sci-
comprehension from varied angles in the humanities and entist George A. Miller.5 The second chapter was one of the
sciences, I can report that although what we don’t know still most famous articles ever written in the field of psychology,
far exceeds what we do, there is current scientific agreement “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some
on at least three principles that have useful implications for Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” The
improving students’ reading comprehension. The three prin- “magical number seven” turned out to be the approximate
ciples (which subsume a number of others) are these: number of items (whether simple facts, or numbers, or
words representing complex concepts) that you can hold in
1. Fluency allows the mind to concentrate on your conscious mind at one time before they start evaporat-
comprehension; ing into oblivion. This “magical number seven” is a limita-
2. Breadth of vocabulary increases comprehension and facili- tion that (with some variation) afflicts everyone—including
tates further learning; and geniuses. One way we overcome this limitation of working
3. Domain knowledge, the most recently understood princi- memory while reading is by learning how to make a rapid,
ple, increases fluency, broadens vocabulary, and enables automatic deployment of underlying reading processes so
deeper comprehension. that they become fast and unconscious, leaving the con-
scious mind (i.e., the working memory) free to think about
Fluency Is Important what a text means.
“Fluency” means “flowing,” and in this context it also means This is why fast and accurate decoding is important. Ex-
“fast.” There is a general, though not perfect, correlation be- periments show that a child who can sound out nonsense
tween how fast you can comprehend a text and how well words quickly and accurately has mastered the decoding
you can comprehend it. To most psychologists, including process and is on the road to freeing up her working mem-
those who don’t specialize in reading, it would be surprising ory to concentrate on comprehension of meaning. Decoding
if that weren’t the case. A person who reads fast has “auto- fluency is achieved through accurate initial instruction fol-
mated” many of the underlying processes involved in read- lowed by lots of practice. Typically, it takes several years of
ing, and can, therefore, devote conscious attention to textual decoding practice before children can process a printed text
meaning rather than to the processes themselves. What’s as rapidly as they can process that same text when listening
more, fluency is greatly enhanced by word and domain to it.
knowledge: While word knowledge speeds up word recogni- Students also overcome the limitations of working
tion and thus the process of reading, world knowledge memory by rapidly grasping what kind of text this is,
speeds up comprehension of textual meaning by offering a rapidly identifying words, and by understanding the
foundation for making inferences.4 A few of the principles grammatical connections between them at the basic level
underlying the relationship between fluency and compre- of the sentence.6 This kind of fluency at the sentence level
hension are explained below. increases with practice and with knowledge of different
If decoding does not happen quickly, the decoded ma- kinds of writing. Such general language fluency is also inti-
terial will be forgotten before it is understood. Have you mately connected with well-practiced vocabulary knowl-
ever tried to understand what is being said in a movie in a edge, meaning how familiar the words and their various
foreign language (say in French) that you have studied in connotations are to the student. Take, for example, the fol-
school? Even if you know the words, isn’t it frustrating that lowing sentence: “Besides having had a lot of useful time in
they speak so fast? While you are trying to work out what the trenches, Claire will also make a good assistant principal
the actors just said, they are already saying something else, because she is able to keep her eyes on the ball.” Educators,
and your mind gets overloaded. The basic difficulty regard- with their knowledge of the conventions of language and vo-
ing speed and reading comprehension is even more serious cabulary use, will have no problem surmising that Claire has
than that. If you were able to slow down the movie so that worked with students (probably as a classroom teacher) and
you could concentrate on identifying the words and translat- is good at staying focused. But notice that to process this
ing them, you would find in that situation, too, that your simple sentence, you had to interpret two metaphors
12 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003
 ing task of some sort, and then reconstruct on a blank chess
A big difference between an expert board the entire chess position without making any mis-
takes. Performance on this task correlates almost perfectly
and a novice reader is the ability with one’s chess ranking. Grand masters make no mistakes,
masters very few, and amateurs can get just five or six pieces
to take in basic features very fast, right. (Remember the magical number seven, plus or minus
two!) On a brilliant hunch, de Groot then performed the
thereby leaving the mind free to same experiment with 25 chess pieces in positions that, in-
stead of being taken from an actual chess game, were just
concentrate on important features. placed at random on the board. Under these new condi-
tions, the performances of the three different groups—grand
masters, masters, and novices—were all exactly the same,
each group remembering just five or six pieces correctly.
The experiment suggests the skill difference between a
master reader who can easily reproduce the 16 letters of “the
cat is on the mat” and a beginning reader who has trouble
reproducing the same letters: t-h-e-c-a-t-i-s-o-n-t-h-e-m-a-t.
If, instead of providing expert and child with that written
sentence, we change the task and ask them to reproduce a
sequence of 16 random letters, the performance of the first-
grader and master reader would be much closer. On average,
neither would get more than a short sequence of the random
letters right. Practiced readers, chess grand masters, and
other experts do not possess any special brain centers that
novices lack, and they do not perform any better than
novices on structurally similar yet unfamiliar tasks.
Nonetheless, experts are able to perform remarkable feats of
comprehension and memory with real-world situations such
as remembering mid-game chess positions or the meanings
and even spellings of actual sentences and paragraphs. How
do they manage?
They do so partly by chunking—a word used by George
A. Miller to denote the way knowledgeable people concen-
trate multiple components into a single item that takes up
just one slot in working memory. “The cat is on the mat” is
an easily remembered sentence, and expert readers can easily
(trenches and ball); and if you were to make a judgment re- reproduce the 16 letters not because the letters are individu-
garding Claire’s qualifications to be an assistant principal, ally remembered, but because the sentence is remembered as
you would draw on your domain knowledge as to the de- a chunk out of which the sub-elements can be reconstructed
mands of that particular job. from prior knowledge of written English. Remember, work-
Finally, fluency is also increased by domain knowl- ing memory can hold roughly seven items—but those items
edge, which allows the reader to make rapid connections can be anything from simple numbers to complex previ-
between new and previously learned content; this both ously-learned concepts that can be concentrated in a single
eases and deepens comprehension. An expert in a subject word or image. What de Groot found, and what subsequent
can read a text about that subject much more fluently than research has continually confirmed, is that the difference in
she can read a text on an unfamiliar topic.7 Prior knowledge fluency and higher-order skill between a novice and an ex-
about the topic speeds up basic comprehension and leaves pert does not lie in mental muscles, but in what de Groot
working memory free to make connections between the new called “erudition,” a vast store of quickly available, previ-
material and previously learned information, to draw infer- ously acquired, knowledge that enables the mind to take in a
ences, and to ponder implications. A big difference between great deal in a brief time. So, when shown a mid-game
an expert and a novice reader—indeed between an expert board, the chess grand masters were not separately remem-
and a novice in any field—is the ability to take in basic fea- bering the placement of 25 pieces—they were able to draw
tures very fast, thereby leaving the mind free to concentrate quickly on previous knowledge of similar past games and the
on important features. one or two ways in which the pieces were aligned differently
This insight was dramatized in a famous experiment. A from those games.
Dutch psychologist Adrian de Groot8 noticed that chess Experiments have shown that when someone compre-
grand masters have a remarkable skill that we amateurs can- hends a text, background knowledge is typically integrated
not emulate. They can glance for five seconds at a complex with the literal word meanings of the text to construct a co-
mid-game chess position of 25 pieces, perform an interven- (Continued on page 16)
SPRING 2003 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 13
herent model of the whole situation implied by the text. An Gospel of Matthew: “Unto every one that hath shall be
expert can quickly make multiple connections from the given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath
words to construct a situation model. But a novice will have not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
less relevant knowledge and less well-structured knowledge, Overcoming this initial disadvantage is a huge challenge.
and will therefore take more time to construct a situation To do so, we need to engage in the best, most enabling
model. Suppose the text contained the term “World War kinds of vocabulary building. As we will see, that means ex-
II.” Someone who has the requisite knowledge of that war plicit vocabulary instruction done in the best possible way
will be able to take in the term very fast, and, like the chess and providing an environment that accelerates the incidental
grand masters, be able to unpack its many layers of meaning acquisition of vocabulary, which is how most vocabulary
when needed. The novice’s limited background knowledge growth takes place.
will not be as readily accessible as the expert’s, and so the A well educated 12th-grader knows an enormous
novice will only slowly make the few connections that his number of words, mostly learned incidentally. But, there
limited knowledge enables. Inevitably, he will comprehend is also an important place for explicit vocabulary develop-
the text poorly. ment, especially in the early years, and especially for children
who are behind. Isabel Beck and her colleagues13 in their ex-
Breadth of Vocabulary Is Important cellent guide to explicit vocabulary instruction estimate that
Vocabulary knowledge correlates strongly with reading (and students can be taught explicitly some 400 words per year in
oral) comprehension. This seems so obvious that it might school. (See “Taking Delight in Words” on page 36 for an
seem pointless to discuss vocabulary in a brief review of re- example of such instruction.) These 400 words can be of
search on reading comprehension. True enough. But we immense importance to those children who are behind and
know a few significant things about vocabulary acquisition need to be brought to the point of understanding key words
that might be useful in enhancing students’ ability to com- as fast as possible. But that is just the beginning. If we want
prehend texts. These are not obvious things, and some as- all of our children to comprehend well, they must learn
pects of vocabulary acquisition are deeply surprising. A few many, many more words each year through incidental
important insights are discussed next. means. A 12th-grade student who scores well enough on the
In vocabulary acquisition, a small early advantage verbal portion of the SAT to get into a selective college
grows into a much bigger one unless we intervene very knows between 60,000 and 100,000 words. There is some
intelligently to help the disadvantaged student learn dispute among experts regarding the actual number so we
words at an accelerated rate. Hart and Risley9 have shown might split the difference and assume that the number is
that low-income homes on average expose young children to about 80,000 words. If we assume that a child starts acquir-
far fewer words and far simpler sentence structures than ing vocabulary at age two, and that the 12th-grader is 17
middle-class homes. (To read more about Hart and Risley’s years old, he has acquired 80,000 words in 15 years. Multi-
work, see “The Early Catastrophe” on page 4.) A high-per- plying 365 days times 15 we get 5,475 days. We divide that
forming first-grader knows about twice as many words as a number into 80,000, and we find that the high-achieving
low-performing one and, as these students go through the 12th-grader has learned some 15 words a day—over 5,000
grades, the differential gets magnified.10 By 12th grade, the words a year. But of course, the 15-words-a-day estimate is
high performer knows about four times as many words as just a mathematical average that describes a haphazard and
the low performer.11 complex process occurring along a very broad front. (For a
The reason for this growing gap is clear: Vocabulary ex- brief account of this process, see “Words Are Learned Incre-
perts agree that adequate reading comprehension depends mentally” on page 18.)
on a person already knowing between 90 and 95 percent of Most vocabulary growth results incidentally, from
the words in a text.12 Knowing that percentage of words al- massive immersion in the world of language and knowl-
lows the reader to get the main thrust of what is being said edge. Recent work in cognitive science holds promise for
and therefore to guess correctly what the unfamiliar words making progress on this incidental learning front. It has long
probably mean. (This inferential process is of course how we been known that the growth of word knowledge is slow and
pick up oral language in early childhood and it sustains our incremental, requiring multiple exposures to words. One
vocabulary growth throughout our lives.) doesn’t just learn a word’s meaning and then have the word.
This means that the communications students read or One gradually learns the word’s denotations and connota-
hear hold very different knowledge and word-acquisition tions and its modes of use little by little over many, many
possibilities for advantaged and disadvantaged students. language experiences.14 The high-performing 12th-grader
Those who know 90 percent of the words in a text will un- who knows 80,000 words knows them with very different
derstand its meaning and, because they understand, they degrees of complexity and precision, and has learned them
will also begin to learn the other 10 percent of the words. not by learning 15 words a day, but by accruing tiny bits of
Those who do not know 90 percent of the words, and there- word knowledge for each of the thousands of words that he
fore do not comprehend the passage, will now be even fur- encounters every day. As I shall discuss below, this and other
ther behind on both fronts: They missed the opportunity to considerations mean that we should immerse students for
learn the content of the text and to learn more words. The extended periods in the sorts of coherent language experi-
prominent reading researcher Keith Stanovich termed this ences that are most conducive to efficient vocabulary
growing gap the “Matthew Effect” from the passage in the learning.
16 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003
 Domain knowledge is necessary to give meaning to
If we don’t know the domain, we otherwise confusing sentences. I once read an anecdote
about an elderly person who went to hear the great Albert
can’t construct a meaningful mental Einstein lecture on relativity at Princeton University. She is
reported to have said after the lecture: “I understood all the
model of what’s being said. words. It was just how they were put together that baffled
me.” What she meant was that the everyday words that Ein-
stein used in his lecture referred to a particular knowledge
domain. If we don’t know that domain, we can’t construct a
meaningful mental model of what’s being said. Here’s a sen-
tence by Einstein such as might have been heard in his
Princeton lecture: “It will be seen from these reflections that
in pursuing the general theory of relativity we shall be led to
a theory of gravitation, since we are able to produce a gravi-
tational field merely by changing the system of coordinates.”
I know all those words, but since I can’t imagine how chang-
ing coordinates will “produce” gravity, I can’t comprehend
what that sentence means.
For a more everyday example, take this sentence from the
February 2003 issue of National Geographic: “Gigantic and
luminous, the earliest star formed like a pearl inside shells of
swirling gas.” Most adults, drawing on their knowledge of
the Big Bang theory, pearl formation (and the use of
metaphor, which I return to below), and gasses, can compre-
hend this sentence. But we would expect different degrees of
comprehension among, say, physicists, amateur astronomers,
and you and me. Likewise, we should expect little compre-
hension among average sixth-graders—not just because of
the words used, but because of the extensive domain knowl-
edge those words represent in this context.
Reading (and listening) require the reader to make in-
ferences that depend on prior knowledge—not on de-
contextualized “inferencing” skills. Many basal reading se-
ries direct teachers to use valuable teaching time to instruct
students in “inferencing skills.” But a simple example illus-
Domain Knowledge Is Important trates that inferencing itself is a fairly basic skill that most
More than vocabulary knowledge is needed to understand children already have: If somebody says to a child, “Hey,
most texts. To make constructive use of vocabulary, the shut up. I’m trying to read,” most children, advantaged or
reader also needs a threshold level of knowledge about the disadvantaged, can infer the connection between the first
topic being discussed—what we call “domain knowledge.” statement and the second. They have prior knowledge of the
Consider the following examples. fact that hearing somebody talk can be distracting and make
Domain knowledge enables readers to make sense of reading difficult. So they are able to construct a mental
word combinations and choose among multiple possible model that meaningfully connects the sentence “Hey shut
word meanings. A typical newspaper article shows why it’s up” with the sentence “I’m trying to read.” In contrast,
important to know in advance something about the subject many children may not understand the simple sentence, “I
matter of a text in order to understand it. If we are reading a wanted to take a vacation in Mexico this year, but my wife
story about a baseball game in the newspaper sports section, can only be away from her job in July.” The children who
we must typically know quite a lot about baseball in order to don’t understand the connection between the clauses don’t
comprehend what is being said. Think of the quantity of lack an inferencing skill; they lack the geographical knowl-
baseball knowledge that has to be already in mind to under- edge that Mexico is extremely hot in July—and not most
stand the simple sentence “Jones sacrificed and knocked in a people’s idea of a pleasant vacation spot.
run.” Strung together in this fashion, the literal words are al- Speaking and writing always convey meanings that are
most meaningless. A baseball-ignorant Englishman reading not explicitly given by the words themselves. If speakers or
that sentence would be puzzled even if there were nothing writers tried to make everything explicit, they would take far
amiss with his fluency or general knowledge of words like too much time to say anything, and the message would be-
“sacrificed.” Words have multiple purposes and meanings, come impossibly long and digressive. We learn from infancy
and their meaning in a particular instance is cued by the that oral language comprehension requires readers to actively
reader’s domain knowledge. The word “sacrifice” has differ- construct meaning by supplying missing knowledge and
ent connotations in a baseball story and in the Bible. making inferences. Of course, the need for prior knowledge
SPRING 2003 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 17
is not unique to oral communication but is also necessary to sight goes back further than that. In Greek antiquity it was
comprehend written texts. understood that communication involves the drawing of in-
In comprehension, the need for making inferences by ac- ferences based on knowledge that is taken for granted. The
tivating already existing domain knowledge has been shown Greek term for such an implicit argument was “en-
by a number of researchers since the 1960s. But the basic in- thymeme,” from en (in) and thumos (mind)—that is, some-

How Words Are Learned Incrementally Over

By Steven A. Stahl Consider the following paragraph In ordinary encounters with a word
from the Atlantic Monthly: in context, some of the information
that is remembered will be reinforced.

W
e live in a sea of words. America’s permanent election cam-
Most of these words are paign, together with other aspects of The information that overlaps be-
known to us, either as very American electoral politics, has one tween encounters is what is important
crucial consequence, little noticed but about the word. Other information
familiar or at least as somewhat famil-
vitally important for the functioning will be forgotten. The forgotten infor-
iar. Ordinarily, when we encounter a of American democracy. Quite sim-
word we don’t know, we skip it, espe- ply, the American electoral system mation is more incidental. With re-
cially if the word is not needed to places politicians in a highly vulnera- peated exposures, some connections
make sense of what we are reading ble position. Individually and collec- become strengthened as that informa-
tively they are more vulnerable, more tion is found in repeated contexts and
(Stahl, 1991). But we remember
of the time, to the vicissitudes of elec- become the way the word is “defined.”
something about the words that we toral politics than are the politicians
skip. This something could be where of any other democratic country. Be-
we saw it, something about the con- cause they are more vulnerable, they

C
onsider the word vicissitudes
text where it appeared, or some other devote more of their time to election-
eering, and their conduct in office is in the above context. The
aspect. This information is in mem- concept of vicissitudes will
more continuously governed by elec-
ory, but the memory is not strong toral considerations. (King, 1997) likely be linked to other concepts in
enough to be accessible to our con- the context, such as “politicians,”
scious mind. As we encounter a word Although I had seen the word vicissi-
“electoral politics,” or possibly to the
repeatedly, more and more informa- tudes before, I did not know its mean-
whole scenario presented. Because of
tion accumulates about that word ing. From the context, one can get a
the syntax, we know that vicissitudes
until we have a vague notion of what general picture of what it means,
does not directly mean “politics,” but
it “means.” As we get more informa- something like “serendipitous happen-
is a characteristic of politics. As the
tion, we are able to define that word. ings.” My Random House Dictionary
word is encountered repeatedly, it will
In fact, McKeown, Beck, Omanson, (1978) says “unexpected changing cir-
be associated with other concepts,
and Pople (1985) found that while cumstances, as of fortune,” so I was
possibly “romance” or “getting a job.”
four encounters with a word did not fairly accurate in my guess.
(Or as the mother of one of my stu-
reliably improve reading comprehen- When a word is encountered for
dents told her repeatedly while grow-
sion, 12 encounters did. the first time, information about its
ing up, “Beware of the vicissitudes of
What happens when someone sees orthography (or spelling) is connected
life.”) These become the strong com-
a word for the first time in a book? to information from the context, so
ponents of the concept, such as might
that after one exposure a person may
be represented in a dictionary defini-
Steven A. Stahl is professor of Curricu- have a general sense of the context in
tion (McKeown, 1991). If the links
lum and Instruction at the University of which it appeared (“It has something
to other concepts are not repeated,
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Stahl’s to do with...”), or a memory of the
they may recede in importance.
previous positions include senior scientist specific context (“I remember seeing it
Given the core meaning of the word
at the Center of the Study of Reading, in an automobile manual”), but not a
vicissitudes, the fact that the subject of
principal investigator at the National generalizable sense of the meaning of
the essay is politics is incidental and
Reading Research Center, and elemen- the word. Dale and O’Rourke (1986)
likely would be forgotten with re-
tary school reading teacher in New York talk about four “levels” of word
peated exposures.
and Maine. Stahl has published numer- knowledge:
As a person encounters the word
ous articles on all aspects of reading re- 1. I never saw it before. again and again, word meaning grows
search and instruction. This article is 2. I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know at a relatively constant rate, dependent
adapted with permission from Vocabu- what it means. on the features of the context. That is,
lary Development, part of From Read- 3. I recognize it in context—it has people show as much absolute gain in
ing Research to Practice: A Series for something to do with... word knowledge from an unknown
Teachers, Brookline Books, 1999. 4. I know it. word as they show from a word of

18 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003

 thing kept in mind and taken for granted but not ex- Likewise, reading comprehension depends on the reader
pressed.15 One example of this characteristic of speech is a filling in blanks and silently supplying enough of the un-
truncated syllogism: “All men are mortal, so Socrates is mor- stated premises to make coherent sense of what is being
tal.” To make strict logical sense of this statement, we have read. Once print has been decoded into words, reading com-
to infer the missing premise that Socrates is a man. prehension, like listening comprehension, requires the active

R
Multiple Exposures ROES
UNEAR
D- CH
which they have some partial knowl- (a) He smoked a cigarette. fixed meaning. These UP
edge, all other things being equal (b) The psychologist smoked his meanings have a family resem-
(Schwanenflugel, Stahl, & McFalls, pipe. blance to each other. Consider the
1997). We found that students made (c) The hippie smoked a marijuana word give in these different contexts
the same amount of growth in word cigarette. (Anderson & Nagy, 1991):
knowledge from a single reading, (d) The 13-year-old smoked his first
John gave Frank five dollars.
whether they began by knowing cigarette.
John gave Mary a kiss.
something about a word or not. Thus,
These all fit under the general defi- The doctor gave the child an
vocabulary knowledge seems to grow
nition, but the actions vary from a injection.
gradually, moving from the first
typical smoking action in (a), to a The orchestra gave a stunning
meaningful exposure to a word to a
puffing in (b), to a deeper and performance.
full and flexible knowledge.
longer inhaling in (c), to an inhaling
One does not always need to know All of these involve some sort of
followed by coughing and choking
a word fully in order to understand it transmitting, with a giver, a recipient,
in (d). Children cannot learn this in-
in context or even to answer a test and something, tangible or intangible,
formation from a dictionary defini-
item correctly. Adults possess a sur- that is given. But the act of giving is
tion. Instead, they need to see the
prising amount of information about radically different in each case.
word in many different contexts, to
both partially known and reportedly see how the word meaning changes
unknown words. Even when people

A
and shifts. full and flexible knowledge of
would report never having seen a Thus, to understand the word in a word involves an under-
word, they could choose a sentence in (d) we need to know that 13-year- standing of the core meaning
which the word was used correctly at a olds are generally novices at smoking of a word and how it changes in dif-
level above chance or discriminate be- and that smoking can make one ferent contexts. To know a word, we
tween a correct synonym and an in- cough, if one is not used to it. Some not only need to have definitional
correct one (Durso & Shore, 1991). words are embedded in a single knowledge, or knowledge of the logical
This suggests that people have some knowledge domain, such as dharma relationship into which a word enters,
knowledge even of words that they re- or jib. To understand dharma, one such as the category or class to which
ported as unknown, and that this must understand at least some basic the word belongs (e.g., synonyms,
knowledge could be used to make concepts associated with Hinduism or antonyms, etc.). This is information
gross discriminations involving a Buddhism. To understand jib, one similar to that included in a dictio-
word’s meaning. Curtis (1987) found must know something about sailing. nary definition. In addition, we also
that people who reported only a par- These words are so tied to their need to understand how the word’s
tial knowledge of a word’s meaning knowledge domains that they cannot meaning adapts to different contexts.
(“I’ve seen it before”) could make a be defined outside of them. (Some I have called this contextual knowledge,
correct response to multiple-choice people, e.g., Johnston, 1984, have since it comes from exposure to a
questions. used vocabulary tests to measure do- word in context. This involves expo-
When a person “knows” a word, he main knowledge.) Most words can be sure to the word in multiple contexts
knows more than the word’s defini- used in multiple domains but have from different perspectives. Children
tion—he also knows how that word distinct meanings within those do- exposed to words in multiple contexts,
functions in different contexts. For ex- mains. The word obligation, for ex- even without instruction, can be pre-
ample, the definition of the verb ample, has a series of related mean- sumed to learn more about those
smoke might be something like “to in- ings, depending on whether the obli- words than students who see a word
hale and puff the smoke of (a gation is a moral one, or a payment in a single context (Nitsch, 1978;
cigarette, etc.)” (Random House, due on a loan, and so on. Anderson Stahl, 1991).

1978). However, the verb smoke de- and Nagy (1991) argue that words are
scribes distinctly different actions in polysemous, containing groups of re-
the following sentences: lated meanings, rather than a single (Sidebar references begin on page 44)

SPRING 2003 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 19

construction of inferences from utterances that are chock ticle, I’ll show that this idea of taken-for-granted knowledge
full of unstated premises and unexplained allusions. is an important clue to the sort of instruction that can help
Irony, metaphor, and other literary devices require students improve their ability to comprehend written texts.
background knowledge for their comprehension. Besides In recent years, efforts to improve reading have focused
filling out logical connections, there are other ways in which on how best to teach decoding. And, of course, fluent de-
relevant background knowledge is activated in reconstruct- coding is an absolute prerequisite to comprehension. But we
ing meaning from a text. One of the most immediately ob- can easily see from this quick summary of research that com-
vious examples is irony, which, by definition, refrains from prehension—the goal of decoding—won’t improve unless
explicitly stating its meaning. If it did so, it would cease to we also pay serious attention to building our students’ word
be irony and become explicit statement. “He’s a bright boy.” and world knowledge.
Is the statement straight, in which case he is thought to be
intelligent, or is it ironical, in which case he is thought to be II. Rethinking the
stupid? Irony is subject to two contrary interpretations, the Language Arts Curriculum
straight and the ironical. To decide between these two possi- To improve reading, schools across the country have been
bilities the reader has to activate relevant world knowledge steadily increasing the amount of time allocated to language
not stated in the sentence. arts. For example, in Baltimore, Chicago, and the entire
Another important illustration of the way in which back- state of California, early-grade teachers are already expected
ground knowledge is activated in the process of compre- to devote 2 ¹⁄₂ hours a day to language arts. In an AFT poll,
hending language is metaphor—an almost omnipresent ele- 80 percent of elementary teachers said their schools recom-
ment of speech. “Victory is sweet” is easily and quickly un- mended a language arts block of two hours or more each
derstood by students. So is “War is hell” or “Don’t be a wet day. (If the poll were limited to teachers in the lower ele-
blanket.” We know these can’t be meant literally because we mentary grades, the percentage might have been even
know what is being referred to. Researchers have shown that higher.) Even given the large challenge we face, this is a lot
metaphors are often processed just as rapidly as literal mean- of time—especially since it’s usually during the precious
ing—indicating that we are constantly activating back- morning hours. We need to use the time optimally. As we
ground knowledge in comprehension. In part two of this ar- shall see, we’re not. What’s happening in that time? Given

What domain knowledge is optimal?

I
f comprehension of a text depends Sixty years later, not knowing of earth; and an introduction to “the
on vocabulary and domain knowl- Washburne’s work, Hirsch and his col- shocking facts” of electricity. The sec-
edge, teachers and program de- leagues conducted a similar review in ond-grade sequence builds on knowl-
signers still need to ask: What kinds the 1980s. They conducted various edge of the body to introduce children
of vocabulary and domain knowledge surveys—of written materials (newspa- to cells, tissues, and organs—and to
will most effectively advance the com- pers, novels, magazines, etc.) and of learn more about the digestive system
prehension abilities of our students? scholars and educators, to determine (a topic of great fascination to second-
What content is optimal? what students should know by the end graders); builds on a basic understand-
The most notable early attempt to of eighth grade to have a strong foun- ing of electricity to introduce the phys-
define this body of knowledge was dation for understanding high school ical sciences; and uses students’ ac-
undertaken by Carleton Washburne material—and ultimately for partici- quaintance with the solar system to in-
in the 1920s when he was superinten- pating in literate adult society. The re- troduce them to the remarkable world
dent of schools in Winnetka, Ill. Ac- sult is a fascinating, systematic K-8 of astronomy, including a first look at
cording to E.D. Hirsch, Washburne trip through the most critical domain the constellations and Galileo’s revolu-
carried out “an exhaustive study of the knowledge in the arts, history, science, tionary claim that the sun and planets
common allusions to persons and geography, math, and literature. By did not revolve around the earth.
places in periodical literature, recog- the end, children have learned about The Core Knowledge K-8 sequence
nizing that in order to read intelli- the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the cul- is available from the Core Knowledge
gently, a person must have familiarity ture and castes of India, the world’s ge- Foundation. To order or read more
with these persons and places.” Once ography, the greatest of its art, and the about the sequence, visit
Washburne learned what knowledge fundamentals of modern science. www.coreknowledge.org/
was taken for granted in writing ad- In science, for example, the first- CKproto2/bkstr/seqnc.htm. A set of
dressed to the literate general public, grade sequence has children learning seven books offering an elaboration
he believed he had a practical basis for about the human body’s skeletal, mus- of the sequence for each grade K-6,
determining some of the domains that cular, and digestive systems; the solar aimed at parents and teachers, is
need to be taught in school. system and the rocks that make up the available at bookstores. —EDITOR

20 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003

 lished basal program I have seen systematically pursues this
Such knowledge could be conveyed goal. Wasted opportunity abounds.

through read-alouds, well-conceived Build Oral Comprehension

vocabulary instruction, and a variety and Background Knowledge
Thomas Sticht has shown that oral comprehension typically
of cumulative activities that places an upper limit on reading comprehension; if you
don’t recognize and understand the word when you hear it,
immerse children in word and you also won’t be able to comprehend it when reading.17
This tells us something very important: Oral comprehension
world knowledge. generally needs to be developed in our youngest students if
we want them to be good readers.
From the earliest ages, reading is much more than decod-
ing. From the start, reading is also accessing and further ac-
quiring language knowledge and domain knowledge. This
means that instruction and practice in fluency of decoding
need to be accompanied by instruction and practice in vo-
cabulary and domain knowledge. If we want to raise later
achievement and avoid the fourth-grade slump, we need to
combine early instruction in the procedures of literacy with
early instruction in the content of literacy, specifically: vo-
cabulary, conventions of language, and knowledge of the
world.
In the earliest grades, before students can read substantive
texts on their own, this content will be best conveyed orally.
An important vehicle is teacher read-alouds, in which texts
selected for their interest, substance, and vocabulary are read
what we’ve just reviewed about reading comprehension, how aloud to children and followed by discussion and lessons
should it be used? that build children’s understanding of the ideas, topics, and
words in the story. As illustrated in “Lost Opportunity” on
Start Early To Build Word and World Knowledge page 24, most of the popular basal reading series include
As I mentioned above, the typical disadvantaged child enters read-alouds in their curriculum, but the content is almost al-
kindergarten knowing only half as many words as the typical ways banal, and read-alouds are generally phased out in sec-
advantaged child. Because of the Matthew Effect, it may ond grade despite the fact that research has found that stu-
never be possible entirely to overcome this initial disadvan- dents benefit from read-alouds until eighth grade.18 Further,
tage on a large scale: As we have seen, word-rich children the basal series’ teacher guides instruct teachers to build
learn more vocabulary and content than word-poor children background knowledge, but usually on topics that are thor-
from the very same language experiences. On the other oughly ordinary, like pets, sharing, and even what spreads
hand, intelligent remediation is possible, especially if we taste best on toast!
start early by encouraging optimal vocabulary growth in Another problem is that the early grades language-arts
preschool and kindergarten. Acquiring word knowledge and curriculum, both in terms of read-alouds and decoding
domain knowledge is a gradual and cumulative process. texts, is overwhelmingly devoted to fiction. Literature is a
Since early learning of words and things is the only way to very important domain of knowledge in its own right, but I
overcome early disadvantage, the argument for including have seen no convincing challenge to the argument made by
optimal content in language arts as early as possible seems Jeanne Chall, who wrote that we need to place a far greater
compelling. emphasis on nonfiction in early language-arts classes. This
There are strong theoretical and practical advantages to emphasis is essential for children to learn the words and con-
teaching early decoding through simple “decodable texts” cepts they need to understand newspapers, magazines, and
that enable the child to progress rapidly in decoding skill. books addressed to the general public.19 But the problem is
But the top research in this area suggests that 40 minutes of not just the disproportionate attention to fiction; in addi-
daily decoding instruction is plenty in first grade; and for tion, the fiction that is offered is typically trivial in content
most second-graders, 20 minutes is ample.16 That leaves be- and simple in its language conventions. Fiction can build
tween one and two hours daily (depending on the time allo- knowledge and understanding of peoples, lands, times, and
cated to language arts) for activities that foster vocabulary, ideas that are very important but totally unknown to chil-
domain knowledge, and fluency. Such knowledge could be dren. A fine example of such fiction is The Hole in the Dike,
conveyed through read-alouds, well-conceived vocabulary included in one basal series. The famous legend acquaints
instruction, and a variety of cumulative activities that im- students with Holland, its geography, and the power of
merse children in word and world knowledge. But no pub- water and the ingenious dike system that restrains it. But

SPRING 2003 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 21

such fiction is the exception. Far more typical, especially be-
fore grades three and four, are stories based in the here and The point of a comprehension
now that address in pedestrian ways the “ideas” children al-
ready know about: school, friendship, families, and the like. strategy is to activate the student’s
Don’t Spend Excessive Time relevant knowledge. That’s great,
Teaching Formal Comprehension Skills but if the relevant prior knowledge
A great deal of time in language arts is currently being spent
on teaching children formal comprehension strategies like is lacking, conscious comprehension
predicting, classifying, and looking for the main idea. (See
“Lost Opportunity” on page 24.) In most language-arts text- strategies cannot activate it.
books, these exercises persist throughout the year and over
many years. Every researcher believes that there is initial
value in practicing these comprehension strategies. They
teach children to construe a text in the same meaning-seek-
ing way that they already construe the oral speech of adults
and their peers. It helps children understand that the text,
like a person, is trying to communicate something. But after
an initial benefit, further conscious practice of these formal
skills is a waste of time, according to Barak Rosenshine, who
reviewed the research on the effects of using such methods.
Rosenshine found that spending six classes on teaching these
skills had the same effect on students’ reading comprehen-
sion as spending 25 classes on them. After a quick initial
bump, there’s a plateau or ceiling in the positive effects, and
little further benefit is derived.20
Rosenshine’s finding might have been predicted from the
rest of what we know about comprehension. Children have
been strategically inferring meaning from speech most of
their lives. (Remember: Every child can construe the infer-
ence implicit in “Shut up! I’m trying to read.”) Students Language is not an isolated sphere of activity but our funda-
don’t lack inferring techniques so much as they lack relevant mental human instrument for dealing with the world. The
domain knowledge. So while it’s good to devote only a small best way to expand students’ language is to expand their un-
amount of time to explicitly teaching comprehension skills, derstanding of what language refers to. If we want students
this does not mean that the skills will then be abandoned. to know the connotations of the word “apple,” the best in-
They will be activated in the course of becoming increas- struction will include references to real apples—not just to
ingly familiar with the vocabulary and domain of what is verbal associations like “sweet,” round,” and “crisp,” but to
being read. The point of a comprehension strategy is to acti- the actual objects that unify those traits. An ideal language
vate the student’s relevant knowledge in order to construct a program is a knowledge program. It is a program that an-
situation model. That’s great, but if the relevant prior chors and consolidates word meaning in the students’ minds
knowledge is lacking, conscious comprehension strategies by virtue of their knowing what the words actually refer to.
cannot activate it. The late Jeanne Chall was distressed at the nullity of the
world knowledge being conveyed to students by the helter-
Systematically Build Word and World Knowledge skelter fictional sketches that did so little to enhance their
Let’s consider why the current basals have failed to advance breadth of knowledge and their vocabulary. She pointed out
reading comprehension scores. First of all, they have failed that world knowledge is an essential component of reading
significantly to advance students’ vocabulary. Vocabulary re- comprehension, because every text takes for granted the
searchers agree that to get a good start in learning the con- readers’ familiarity with a whole range of unspoken and un-
notations of a word, a person needs multiple exposures to written facts about the cultural and natural worlds.
the word in different contexts. Such exposure is not supplied It is now well accepted that the chief cause of the achieve-
by a fragmented selection of reading in which topics leap ment gap between socioeconomic groups is a language gap.
from a day at the beach to a trip to the vegetable section of Much work on the subject of language and vocabulary ne-
the supermarket. glects a fundamental element of word acquisition that is so
That is the more superficial defect of current programs; basic as to be almost invisible: The relationship between lan-
another goes deeper. With their very heavy orientation to guage and the world knowledge to which language refers is
trivial literature, these programs do not take it upon them- extremely strong. In human beings, knowledge of a subject
selves to enhance students’ general knowledge in any coher- is automatically accompanied by language use that repre-
ent way. Wide vocabulary and broad knowledge go together. (Continued on page 28)

22 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003

READING COMPREHENSION
(Continued from page 22) World knowledge is an essential
sents that knowledge. It is this language/knowledge nexus component of reading
that establishes the key principle of a language arts curricu-
lum: A coherent and extended curriculum is the most effec- comprehension, because every text
tive vocabulary builder and the greatest contributor to in-
creased reading comprehension. takes for granted the readers’
In the classroom, reading comprehension and vocabulary
are best served by spending extended time on reading and familiarity with a whole range of
listening to texts on the same topic and discussing the facts
and ideas in them. The number of classes spent on a topic unspoken and unwritten facts about
should be determined by the time needed to understand and
become familiar with the topic—and by grade level. In
the cultural and natural worlds.
kindergarten and first grade, students might listen to and
discuss single topics for just three classes. In fourth grade,
the immersion might last two weeks, and in later grades
longer. Needless to say, this principle applies to good fic-
tional stories as well as good nonfiction. These texts and
topics must be compelling enough that both the teacher and
the children want to talk about what they read, and deep
enough that there is enough reason to revisit the topic.
Such immersion in a topic not only improves reading and
develops vocabulary, it also develops writing skill. One of
the remarkable discoveries that I made over the many years
that I taught composition was how much my students’ writ-
ing improved when our class stuck to an interesting subject
over an extended period. The organization of their papers
got better. Their spelling improved. Their style improved.
Their ideas improved. Now I understand why: When the
mind becomes familiar with a subject, its limited resources
can begin to turn to other aspects of the writing task, just as
in reading. All aspects of a skill grow and develop as subject-
matter familiarity grows. So we kill several birds with one
stone when we teach skills by teaching stuff.
Moreover, there is evidence that by teaching solid content
* * *
in reading classes we increase students’ reading comprehen-
sion more effectively than by any other method. Some very The great sociologist James S. Coleman, after spending a ca-
suggestive research conducted by John Guthrie and his col- reer examining the characteristics of effective schools and
leagues shows that reading instruction that focuses on a co- programs, concluded that the most important feature of a
herent knowledge domain over an extended time not only good school program is that it makes good academic use of
enhances students’ general vocabularies compared to a con- school time. The consistent theme of Coleman’s work had
trol group but also improves their general fluency and moti- been “equality of educational opportunity”—the title of his
vation to read.21 This is exactly what we would predict from monumental “Coleman Report” of 1966.22 Making good use
what has been determined about the processes of reading of school time, he concluded, was the single most egalitarian
comprehension and vocabulary growth. For instance, take function the schools could perform, because for disadvan-
the rule of thumb that you need to know 90 percent of the taged children, school time was the only academic-learning
words to comprehend a text. As exposure to the domain is time, whereas advantaged students learned a lot outside of
extended over time, the percentage of text words familiar to school. The main conclusion that people gleaned from
the child will increase. This means that incidental word Coleman’s work was that social advantage counted for more
learning of all the words of the text, both general words and in academic results than schooling did—as schools were
domain-specific words will be continually enhanced with ex- then constituted. But there was a second, much more hope-
tended immersion in a subject matter. At the same time, ful finding in the Coleman Report that Coleman himself
general fluency will also be enhanced as the child becomes pursued in his later career—the inherently egalitarian and
more familiar with the domain. In short, the principle of compensatory character of a really good school program. A
content immersion can make language-arts classes become poor program adversely affects low-income students more
not just more interesting experiences for students but also than middle-income students who are less dependent on the
much more effective vehicles for enhancing their reading school in gaining knowledge. By contrast, a good program is
and writing skills. inherently compensatory because it has a bigger effect on

28 AMERICAN EDUCATOR SPRING 2003

low-income than middle-income students. This is because
low-income students have more to learn—and in an effec- Making good use of school time is
tive program they begin to catch up.
A good, effective language-arts program that is focused on the single most egalitarian function
general knowledge and makes effective use of school time
will not only raise reading achievement for all students, it the schools perform, because for
will, by virtue of the Coleman principle, narrow the reading
gap—and the achievement gap—between groups.
disadvantaged children, school time
Endnotes is the only academic learning time,
1
Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V.A., & Baldwin, L.E. (1990). The Reading Cri-
sis: Why poor children fall behind. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- whereas advantaged students can
versity Press.
2
Hart, B., & Risley, T.R. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Every-
learn a lot outside of school.
day Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore, Md.: Paul H.
Brookes Publishing Co.
3
Campbell, J.R., Hombo, C.M., & Mazzeo, J. (2000). NAEP 1999
Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance.
NCES 2000469.
4
Recht, D.R., & Leslie, L. (1988). Effect of prior knowledge on good
and poor readers’ memory of text. Journal of Educational Psychology,
vol. 80(1), pp.16-20. American Psychological Association.
5
Miller, G.A. (1969). The Psychology of Communication: seven essays.
Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books.
6
Kintsch, W. (1998). Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition. N.Y.:
Cambridge University Press.
7
Ericsson, K.A., & Charness, N. (1994). Expert performance: Its
structure and acquisition. American Psychologist, vol. 49(8), pp. 725-
747.
8
de Groot, A. (1965). Thought and Choice in Chess. The Hague, Mou-
ton, in translation.
9
See endnote 2.
10
Graves, M.F., Brunetti, G.J., & Slater, W.H. (1982). The reading
vocabularies of primary-grade children of varying geographic and
social backgrounds. In J.A. Harris & L.A. Harris (eds), New in-
quiries in reading research and instruction, pp. 99-104. Rochester,
N.Y.: National Reading Conference. Also see Graves, M.F., &
Slater, W.H. (1987). The development of reading vocabularies in rural
19
See endnote 1.
disadvantaged students, inner-city disadvantaged and middle-class sub- 20
Rosenshine, B., & Meister, C. (1994). Reciprocal Teaching: A Re-
urban students. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Ed- view of the Research. Review of Educational Research, vol. 64, pp.
ucational Research Association, Washington, D.C. 479-530, Winter.
11
Smith, M.K. (1941). Measurement of the size of general English vo- 21
Guthrie, J.T., Anderson, E., Alao, S., & Rinehart, J. (1999). Influ-
cabulary through the elementary grades and high school. Genetic ences of concept-oriented reading instruction on strategy use and
Psychological Monographs, 24, pp. 311-345. conceptual learning from text. Elementary School Journal, vol. 99(4),
12
Nagy, W.E., and Scott, J. (2000). Vocabulary Processes in Kamil, M. March, pp. 343-366. See also Guthrie, John T., Wigfield, Allan, &
et al., Handbook of Reading Research, vol. III. Mahwah, N.J.: Erl- VonSecker, Clare. Effects of integrated instruction on motivation
baum. and strategy use in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, vol.
92(2), June 2000, pp. 331-341. American Psychological Associa-
13
Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G., & Kucan, L. (2002) Bringing Words to tion.
Life. New York: Guilford Press.
22
Coleman, J.S. (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. U.S. De-
14
See endnote 12.
partment of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education,
15
Singer, M., Revlin, R., & Halldorson, M. (1990). Bridging-infer- Print Office, Washington, D.C.
ences and enthymemes. In A.C. Graesser & G.H. Bower (eds), In-
ferences and Text Comprehension, pp. 35-52. San Diego, Calif.: Aca-
demic Press. Further Reading
16
Personal communication with Louisa Moats. Alexander, P.A., Kulikowich, J.M., & Schulze, S.K. (1994). How sub-
ject-matter knowledge affects recall and interest. American Educa-
17
Sticht, T.G. (1975). Auding and reading: A developmental model. tional Research Journal, vol. 31(2) Summer, pp. 313-337. American
Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, vol. 5, Winter. Educational Research Association.
18
Chall, J.S., & Jacobs, V.A. (1996). The Reading, Writing, and Lan-
Baddeley, A.D. (1998). Human memory: Theory and practice. Need-
guage Connection. In J. Shimron (ed.), Literacy and Education: Es-
ham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.
says in Memory of Dina Feitelson, pp. 33-48. Cresskill, N.J.: Hamp-
ton Press, Inc.
(Continued on page 48)
SPRING 2003 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS 29
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Snow, C.E. Barnes, W.S., Chandler, J., Goodman, I.F., & Hemphill, Nagy, W.E., & Herman, P.A. (1987). Breadth and depth of vocabulary
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