Five Decades of Comprehension Research: Informing the Future

Abstract

This article shares insights from a symposium celebrating the retirement of P. David Pearson, one of the most influential reading researchers of the last half-century. Presenters addressed the nature, instruction, and assessment of reading comprehension, teacher learning and comprehension, and the texts and contexts of comprehension. Collectively, the sessions offered the opportunity to reflect on what we have learned over five decades of comprehension research and practice and to engage with questions about the work that lies ahead. In particular, presenters called for renewed efforts to link comprehension instruction to students’ roles as agents and actors; to embrace complex views of readers, texts, and contexts; and to foreground teachers’ roles in their own learning about comprehension and in instructional reform efforts.