This grounding of literate practices within a sociocultural context allows researchers to analyze the

various resources used in meaning making in relation to the cultural, social, and historical influences in
which they reside (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2009; Shanahan, McVee, & Bailey, 2014). Like other concepts,
reading comprehension and instruction are defined by the expectations, experiences, instructional
approaches, assessments, and sociocultural, political, and historical contexts in which they are presented
and enacted (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 1999; Bloome, 1985). Over the past decades, reading
comprehension has been defined as oral comprehension plus decoding abilities (Gough, 1972), a process
of building and activating schema (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983), a psycholinguistic process (Goodman,
1996; Smith, 1988), and a form of cultural mediation (Smagorinsky, 2001).