Comprehension Instruction for Students With Reading Disabilities in Grades 4 Through 12

Many students with reading difficulties in grades 4 through 12 experience challenges in understanding and learning from text. Some of these learners have demonstrated reading challenges from the early grades and have not acquired successful reading skills. Others were adequate readers in the early grades when word reading was the focus and when text complexity was minimal. Improving reading outcomes for both persistently poor readers and relatively newly challenged readers requires school-wide instructional practices integrated into content area instruction in math, science, and social studies. This article describes these practices and provides examples of how to teach reading comprehension within the content area.