LSHSS
Clinical Focus
Beyond Comprehension Strategy
Instruction: What’s Next?
Amy M. Ellemana and Donald L. Comptonb
Purpose: In this article, we respond to Catts and Kamhi’s
(2017) argument that reading comprehension is not a single
ability.
Method: We provide a brief review of the impact of strategy
instruction, the importance of knowledge in reading
comprehension, and possible avenues for future research
and practice.
Results: We agree with Catts and Kamhi’s argument
that reading comprehension is a complex endeavor and
that current recommended practices do not reflect the
complexity of the construct. Knowledge building, despite its
important role in comprehension, has been relegated to a
back seat in reading comprehension instruction. In the final
C
atts and Kamhi (2017) argued that reading com-
prehension is not a unidimensional construct, and
therefore, comprehension instruction should reflect
the multiple dimensions it comprises. First, they examine
the complexity of reading comprehension using the RAND
Reading Study Group model (2002) that considers reading
comprehension to be an interaction between the reader, the
text, and the task within a sociocultural context. They next
provide evidence about the complexity of reading compre-
hension from studies demonstrating the marked variability
across standardized reading-comprehension assessments.
Last, they discuss the implications of not fully appreciating
the complexity of comprehension by limiting comprehen-
sion instruction to teaching general reading-comprehension
strategies. In this article, we consider Catts and Kamhi’s
arguments concerning reading-comprehension instruction,
the importance of knowledge building in comprehension,
and possible avenues for developing the next generation
of reading-comprehension instructional methods.
a
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro
b
Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University,
Tallahassee
Correspondence to Amy M. Elleman: amy.elleman@mtsu.edu
Editor and Associate Editor: Shelley Gray
Received April 30, 2016
Revision received October 24, 2016
Accepted October 28, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_LSHSS-16-0036
84 Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools • Vol. 48 • 84–91 • April 2017 • Copyright © 2017 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Clinical Forum: Reading Comprehension Is Not a Single Ability
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section of the article, we outline possible avenues
for research and practice (e.g., generative language
instruction, dialogic approaches to knowledge building,
analogical reasoning and disciplinary literacy, the use of
graphics and media, inference instruction) for improving
reading-comprehension outcomes.
Conclusions: Reading comprehension is a complex ability,
and comprehension instruction should reflect this complexity. If
we want to have an impact on long-term growth in reading
comprehension, we will need to expand our current repertoire
of instructional methods to include approaches that support
the acquisition and integration of knowledge across a variety
of texts and topics.
Complexity of Comprehension
Catts and Kamhi’s (2017) description of reading
comprehension as a multidimensional, complex skill is im-
portant to highlight. Extracting meaning from text and form-
ing a coherent mental model relies on the coordination of
multiple cognitive processes (Kintsch, 1998; RAND Read-
ing Study Group, 2002). It is, therefore, not surprising that
researchers have not been able to isolate one causal factor
to explain children’s weaknesses in reading comprehension,
but have instead found multiple sources that contribute to
such difficulties, including weaknesses in decoding, working
memory, linguistic reasoning, executive functioning, vocab-
ulary, and prior knowledge (e.g., Cutting & Scarborough,
2006; Perfetti, Marron, & Foltz, 1996). Thus, it seems sensi-
ble that instruction targeting only one aspect of reading
comprehension will likely yield limited results. Although
most educators readily acknowledge the complexity of com-
prehension, current instructional practices may be over-
simplified and too narrow to affect long-term growth
(Willingham, 2006–2007).
As Catts and Kamhi point out, international data
indicate that adolescents in the United States are falling
behind in reading achievement compared with students in
other countries (Heitin, 2013). Many different factors have
been suggested for this decline in reading achievement,
including a lack of teacher quality (Merry, 2013), a decline
Disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing interests existed at the time
of publication.
 in text complexity across materials over time (Adams, 2010–
2011; Hayes, Wolfer, & Wolfe, 1996), and instructional
intensity (Vaughn et al., 2010). However, it is unclear whether
any of these fully account for stagnant scores. Even when
provided high-quality intensive intervention by trained
researchers, many adolescents with reading difficulties show
minimal growth in reading comprehension (e.g., Kemple
et al., 2008; Vaughn et al., 2010).
Limitations of Strategy Instruction
Comprehension strategy critics contend that stagnant
scores may stem from allocating too much instructional time
to teaching reading-comprehension strategies at the expense
of other aspects important to comprehension such as devel-
oping background knowledge (Hirsch, 2006; Willingham,
2006–2007). Despite a plethora of studies demonstrating
positive effects for strategy instruction (e.g., Gersten, Fuchs,
Williams, & Baker, 2001; National Reading Panel, 2000),
critics contend that the causal link between strategy instruc-
tion and reading comprehension remains unclear (Wilkinson &
Son, 2011). For instance, many of the reading-comprehension
studies reviewed by the National Reading Panel did not
include measures to directly evaluate changes in strategy
use, nor did most include control groups receiving good
content instruction. Without this information, it is difficult
to clearly attribute the change in reading comprehension to
any specific strategies or techniques. It is also interesting
that previous reviews (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994) found
that the magnitude of the effects did not differ on the basis
of which strategies were implemented, suggesting that it
may be a third unmeasured factor (e.g., engagement and
self-monitoring) that leads to increases in reading compre-
hension (Wilkinson & Son, 2011).
Even strategy critics admit that reading-comprehension
strategies should be explicitly taught, but they argue that
only a few lessons are required to attain gains (Willingham,
2006–2007). Critics also concede that some students may
benefit more from strategy instruction than other students
(Willingham, 2006–2007). Poor comprehenders are one group
of readers that might need strategy instruction to make sense
of text. Studies have shown that poor comprehenders are
passive in monitoring their comprehension and constructing
meaning (Cain & Oakhill, 1999). It has also been shown that
even when poor comprehenders have the requisite knowl-
edge to make an inference, they do so less often than good
comprehenders (Barnes, Dennis, & Haefele-Kalvaitis, 1996;
Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001). Given this, more
studies need to be conducted to determine the specific con-
ditions under which strategy instruction is most effective.
Thus, our intent in this article is not to recommend
the cessation of strategy instruction but instead to advocate
for a broader view of reading-comprehension instruction.
Our reasons are twofold. First, strategy instruction may
result in a shallow representation of a text and may inter-
fere with the deeper processing of its content. For instance,
if a student concentrates solely on figuring out the main
idea of a passage, he or she may miss the deeper meaning
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of the text intended by the author. In addition, conscious
use of strategies comes at a cost. Students must recall the
strategy, follow steps to execute the strategy, and assess
whether the strategy was successful. Engaging in these pro-
cesses requires a great deal of cognitive resources, and thus
may limit how deeply students engage with the content.
The focus of instruction becomes the strategy itself and not
the building of the representation intended by the author
of the text. Second, the focus on teaching strategies to the
detriment of building background knowledge does not
make sense for long-term growth in reading comprehen-
sion (see Compton, Miller, Elleman, & Steacy, 2014). Until
research reveals more optimal methods for teaching read-
ing comprehension, practitioners should continue to teach
strategies. However, if we want to have an impact on later
reading comprehension, we must prioritize supporting
children’s acquisition of domain knowledge throughout
development.
Importance of Knowledge
Some theorists contend that knowledge is the driving
force in comprehension (Kendeou, Walsh, Smith, & O’Brien,
2014; Kintsch & Rawson, 2005). They posit that having
larger and denser knowledge networks allows greater acti-
vation and efficient retrieval of relevant information when
making inferences during reading (Kendeou et al., 2014).
Studies have found that compared with good readers, strug-
gling readers tend to have less developed content knowledge
and greater difficulties using the knowledge they have to
build a coherent situation model (Bransford, Stein, Shelton,
& Owings, 1981; Oakhill, 1983). It has also been consis-
tently shown that readers with more knowledge in a domain
outperform others on reading-comprehension and memory
tasks (e.g., Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Kendeou & van
den Broek, 2007; Recht & Leslie, 1988). Studies considering
the relative importance of prior knowledge and reading-
comprehension ability have found that readers with prior
knowledge outperform readers who have better reading-
comprehension skills but little background knowledge in
the tested topic (e.g., Schneider, Körkel, & Weinert, 1989).
In a study examining the contribution of knowledge
to reading and listening comprehension for fifth-grade stu-
dents, Compton, Miller, Gilbert, and Steacy (2013) found
that having some knowledge of a topic in a passage was
positively associated with correctly answering questions
about the passage, and that general world knowledge (as
measured by the Academic Knowledge subtest of the
Woodcock–Johnson III Test of Achievement; Woodcock,
McGrew, & Mather, 2001) and vocabulary (as measured
by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–III; Dunn &
Dunn, 1997) remained significantly associated with perfor-
mance after controlling for prior knowledge of the passage
topic and general reading skill. These findings suggest
that both passage-specific and general knowledge are nec-
essary for forming a coherent representation of a text. Miller
and Keenan (2009) found that compared with skilled readers,
struggling readers with impoverished background knowledge
85
 had difficulty in recalling a text’s central ideas, but when
aided with background knowledge, they no longer demon-
strated this centrality deficit. These findings indicate that
background knowledge may serve as a compensatory tool
for struggling readers. Other evidence also supports this
idea. Interventions that teach readers to use prior knowl-
edge or provide students with activities to build background
knowledge have been found to be effective for comprehen-
sion (Dole, Valencia, Greer, & Wardrop, 1991; Neuman,
1988; Recht & Leslie, 1988).
Content Instruction in Schools
Although educators acknowledge the importance of
knowledge in reading comprehension, little classroom
instruction is dedicated to reading informational text in
the primary grades (Banilower et al., 2013; Duke, 2000;
Palincsar & Duke, 2004). In addition, in early schooling
students spend relatively little time in content classes com-
pared with reading classes (Hirsch, 2006; Rothman, 2005).
This lack of exposure to expository text disadvantages
students long-term, because they miss opportunities to
build the rich knowledge and vocabulary needed to com-
prehend the texts they will be expected to understand later
in elementary school. This may be especially problem-
atic for students with reading difficulties, who have been
shown to have particular difficulty understanding exposi-
tory text (e.g., Sáenz & Fuchs, 2002).
Kintsch (2009) has suggested that “a major problem
in school learning is the student’s failure to construct a
situation model at all, or the inability to construct an ade-
quate one” (p. 225). A reader develops a situation model
by integrating the literal meaning of the text with his or
her background knowledge. This integration between
the text and the reader’s knowledge is heavily dependent
on inference ability. Without well-connected knowledge,
students will have difficulty making the necessary infer-
ences to construct a coherent situation model (Kendeou &
van den Broek, 2005; McNamara & Magliano, 2009). To
adequately build knowledge across children’s development,
we will need to carefully consider how to effectively pres-
ent content over time. The Common Core State Standards
committee (National Governors Association Center for
Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers,
2012) has recommended an increased use of informational
text and a gradual increase of text complexity across grade
levels. They provide guidelines on how to increase text
complexity but not on how to choose texts to systemati-
cally build content knowledge.
Disciplinary Approaches and Integrated
Literacy Instruction
Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) argued that as readers
develop, they require more specialized reading strategies.
Early basic skills (e.g., word reading) and intermediate
skills (e.g., general comprehension strategies) are necessary
but not sufficient for more advanced critical thinking in
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specialized areas such as history, science, and mathematics.
Those authors later demonstrated (Shanahan & Shanahan,
2012) that experts in a particular field use qualitatively
different approaches to reading in their area of expertise
than do nonexperts. Experts in a field have acquired spe-
cialized ways of thinking that allow them to interact ef-
fectively and efficiently with texts to process meaning.
Future research examining the use of these strategies with
students will help us determine their effectiveness.
Other programs integrating content and literacy have
been evaluated and found to be effective for increasing
comprehension and content knowledge. For example, Con-
cept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI; e.g., Guthrie
& Klauda, 2014), Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension
of Text (e.g., Vaughn et al., 2013), and In-Depth Expanded
Application of Science (IDEAS; e.g., Romance & Vitale,
2001) have demonstrated positive effects for reading com-
prehension, content learning, and attitudes toward science.
CORI is an integrated approach that focuses on knowledge
development, comprehension strategy use, and motivation.
The program teaches comprehension strategies such as
summarizing and inference making using multiple exposi-
tory texts. In addition, it makes use of concept mapping, so
students can better understand the connections between
central concepts. CORI relies heavily on collaborative dis-
cussion, providing choices, and emphasizing the impor-
tance of reading. Similar to CORI, Promoting Adolescents’
Comprehension of Text includes collaborative learning and
discussion to build background knowledge and promote liter-
acy skills. Instruction focuses on a central concept and in-
cludes activating prior knowledge using an advanced organizer,
building vocabulary, and reading expository texts.
The Science IDEAS (Romance & Vitale, 2012) pro-
gram integrates science and literacy instruction by using
multiple science texts and media. IDEAS components
include a cumulative review of previously covered topics
and assessment of students’ prior knowledge of a topic,
engaging in inquiry science investigations, learning com-
prehension strategies (e.g., summarizing and questioning),
recording and reflecting on science activities in journals,
constructing concept maps, and completing application
activities (e.g., answering open-ended questions, Internet
research, and extended projects). Students present projects
to their peers and display their work.
As we consider more varied approaches to reading
comprehension, research will need to explore innovative
approaches to promote reading comprehension and knowl-
edge building. In addition to a focus on knowledge building,
Catts and Kamhi (2017) suggested instructional methods
for improving reading comprehension including instruc-
tion in language, argumentation, story structure, and use
of different types of media to build background knowl-
edge. Although some of these approaches may be well
known to practitioners, they are often underused. In the
following section, we discuss promising approaches and
then provide recommendations practitioners can use to
take action in supporting their students’ acquisition of
content knowledge.
 Next Steps: Recommendations for Practice
Focus on Building Knowledge Across Development
Increased opportunities to learn domain knowledge
may provide a protective buffer for at-risk readers’ later
comprehension abilities. Very little instructional time is
currently devoted to content-area learning (Banilower
et al., 2013) or expository-text reading in the early grades
(e.g., Duke, 2000). A focus on the early and ongoing
acquisition of domain knowledge is essential for later
learning and comprehension development. This can be
accomplished using a variety of learning opportunities
geared to promote knowledge acquisition, including in-
creased opportunities to interact with informational texts,
engage in hands-on projects, and various media.
As suggested by Catts and Kamhi (2017), media
may provide a vehicle for efficiently building background
knowledge. When considering reading-comprehension
skills across various media, studies have shown a strong
relationship for comprehension across different modalities,
(e.g., listening, watching television or movies; Gernsbacher,
1990; Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White, & van den Broek,
2008). Use of read-alouds, videos, and online resources that
offer interactive activities—such as National Geographic Kids
(http://kids.nationalgeographic.com) and PBS LearningMedia
(http://www.pbslearningmedia.org)—provide engaging
experiences that make abstract concepts more concrete.
Although the inclusion of multiple sources of text and
media is likely to enhance domain-knowledge learning,
very few studies have examined how to best use media to
support knowledge acquisition and comprehension (see
Magliano, Loschky, Clinton, & Larson, 2013; McNamara
& Magliano, 2009). Educators would benefit a great deal
from increased research in this area.
Purposefully Select Texts to Promote
Knowledge Acquisition
Across grade levels, knowledge development should
be considered when selecting texts to use for literacy instruc-
tion. Practitioners should select texts that allow students
to gain expertise in a domain. They should also consider how
to sequence the texts considering how the knowledge in one
text builds on another. Jumping from one text to another
with no consideration of knowledge development provides
a disjointed experience for the students and a missed oppor-
tunity for the repeated exposure of concepts and vocabulary
in a domain. One promising instructional approach for devel-
oping knowledge is to pair narrative and expository text
within a theme. Online resources such as Newsela (http://
www.newsela.com), TextProject (http://www.textproject.
org), ReadWorks (http://www.readworks.org), and the
Lexile Framework for Reading (http://www.lexile.com)
provide tools to choose topic-related texts at a reader’s
appropriate level of text complexity. In addition to select-
ing text for instruction, practitioners should encourage
children to independently select informational texts in an
area of interest to develop expertise. Setting up a themed
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library can help children develop interest and expertise in
different domains.
Teach Content-Related Vocabulary
Reading comprehension cannot occur in the absence
of language skills. The explicit teaching of vocabulary
has been shown to positively affect reading and listening
comprehension, especially for struggling readers (Elleman,
Lindo, Morphy, & Compton, 2009). Struggling readers
have been shown to have particular difficulty with exposi-
tory text (Sáenz & Fuchs, 2002). Explicitly teaching con-
tent vocabulary will be necessary to support students’
understanding of complex informational texts. Some vocab-
ulary strategies, such as deriving meaning from context
(Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998), can be applied and are
useful across content areas. Other strategies, such as mor-
phemic analysis, may be more useful in some content areas
(e.g., science) than in others (e.g., history). Beyond these
vocabulary strategies, contextual factors such as providing
instruction in small groups and using high levels of discus-
sion have been associated with increased gains in compre-
hension (Elleman et al., 2009).
The technique of semantic feature analysis promotes
discussion of key concepts and vocabulary in a text. It has
been shown to be highly effective for increasing vocabu-
lary knowledge and comprehension (Bos & Anders, 1990).
This vocabulary-comprehension method is ideal for use with
informational texts and can be used before, during, or after
text reading. Students are presented with a chart that has
targeted concepts and vocabulary on the left and features
of the topic across the top (see Figure 1 for an example).
Students discuss and then indicate on the chart whether the
vocabulary or concept has a particular feature. This tech-
nique can be used to activate prior knowledge or as a prompt
to find more information about the relationship between
important concepts in a text. More information and tem-
plates for semantic feature analysis can be found at Reading
Rockets (http://www.readingrockets.org).
Increase Discourse and Critical Thinking About
Informational Text
Discussion has been shown to be associated with
gains in comprehension (Gersten et al., 2001). Yet in an
observation study of middle- and high-school language
arts and social studies classes, Swanson et al. (2016) found
that text-based discussion occurred in less than 20% of
the total instructional time in both subjects. The integrated
literacy programs mentioned earlier (CORI, IDEAS,
Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text) all rely
heavily on collaborative learning and discussion. Other
dialogic approaches focusing on teaching high-level
questioning and discussion have been shown to improve
comprehension (McKeown, Beck, & Blake, 2009). Catts
and Kamhi (2017) suggested that reading-comprehension
instruction should shift from a focus on teaching compre-
hension strategies and move toward teaching students to
87
 Figure 1. An example of semantic feature analysis used with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Students work in small
groups and discuss the relationships between the vocabulary and events in Germany during World War II. Students
place a “+,” “−,” or “?” to indicate the relationships between concepts.

engage deeply with the content in text. One of their sug-
gestions includes teaching students how to identify a claim,
evaluate evidence, and consider the source of the infor-
mation. These are some of the close-reading skills being
advocated by the Common Core State Standards initia-
tive (National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2012).
Close reading involves deep examination of text organiza-
tion, precision of vocabulary, arguments, inferential
meanings, and author’s purpose using repeated readings
of short, complex texts (Fisher & Frey, 2014). Students are
taught to annotate text, engage in discussion, and provide
evidence from the text to support their reasoning. These
methods have been a mainstay of secondary and college
English classrooms for a long time, but it is unclear how
well these teaching strategies work with elementary students.
Teaching argumentation and engaging in close-reading
activities are likely beneficial for readers, but more research
will be needed to help us understand how to teach these
techniques to younger readers.
Use Graphic Organizers to Teach Text Structure
and Conceptual Frameworks
Analogical reasoning refers to the process of transfer-
ring knowledge from one situation to another by finding
correspondences between one set of information and another
(Gick & Holyoak, 1983). This type of mapping between
specific learning events allows abstract, context-independent
frameworks to form in regard to knowledge. Once formed,
these conceptual frameworks (also called framework theories
and schemas) allow new information to be assimilated more
easily (Griffiths, Steyvers, & Tenenbaum, 2007). Story-structure
sensitivity, a known predictor for reading-comprehension
ability (Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005), is an example of
this type of abstract, content-independent knowledge. Story
structure likely develops implicitly for many children. As
children encounter multiple narratives over time, they begin
to understand that most narratives contain specific elements
(e.g., goal-oriented characters, problem, resolution). This
implicit knowledge of story structure assists the reader in
predicting what is likely to happen next in a newly encoun-
tered narrative, constraining the possibilities for developing
the situation model. In a similar vein, teaching students
how certain concepts within a domain are related allows
them to transfer that knowledge to make sense of the new
incoming information. For instance, teaching students the
underlying causal structure necessary to understand the
interdependencies in an ecosystem will facilitate learning
information about an unknown ecosystem. Promoting deep
comprehension in children with reading difficulties may
be maximized through instruction that emphasizes how
information is related within and across topics.
Graphic organizers (e.g., story mapping, concept
mapping) provide a visual display of how concepts are re-
lated to one another and have been shown to be effective
for enhancing comprehension and knowledge acquisition
(Gersten et al., 2001; Mayer, 2001; Nesbit & Adesope,
2006). Graphic organizers may be useful to students, be-
cause they help explicate the framework theories needed to
form well-connected knowledge structures. For example,
use of a food web helps learners recognize the importance
of understanding interdependencies in different ecosystems.
A framework theory learned explicitly through the use of
a graphic organizer can then be used when encountering a
text about other ecosystems. Explicitly teaching students
conceptual framework structures through the use of graphic
organizers may help them to more easily see the connections

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 Figure 2. Signal words for identifying text structure.
and allow them to acquire new knowledge more efficiently.
Students can be taught to identify signal words to determine
the underlying structure of a text and to select the appropri-
ate graphic organizer to represent it. A selection of various
informational text structures and signal words can be found
in Figure 2. The corresponding graphic organizers and
teaching activities can be found on the Florida Center for
Reading Research website (http://www.fcrr.org).
Conclusion
In conclusion, we acknowledge that strategy instruc-
tion is important, but contend that it should not be the
only focus in reading-comprehension instruction. Other im-
portant components to long-term comprehension growth,
such as systematic knowledge building, have been relegated
to a backseat in research and practice for too long. As Catts
and Kamhi (2017) suggested, it is time to truly acknowledge
the complexity of reading comprehension by designing
instruction that more adequately reflects the construct.
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