ABSTRACT
It used to be thought that “reading is reading.” That is, if you can read one kind of text, you can read anything. Thus, this was the way that most reading, both decoding and comprehension, was taught was during the time designated for English Language Arts in elementary schools. Most of the reading that students cut their teeth on was story text. It was assumed that they could transfer what they learned about comprehending and retaining story text to informational text. Now we know more about how reading comprehension and retention actually works: We understand much more about the domain-specific nature of reading skills, and how they don’t so easily walk themselves over from the room in which story text is taught to the rooms in which other kinds of subjects are taught.
