ABSTRACT
The three chapters we read for this volume provided enormous food for thought about comprehension, its development through instruction, and its assessment, as well as teaching and assessment of reading more generally. We also found the chapters inspiring of good questions, which we emphasize in this commentary. These three authoring teams offered admirably scholarly position papers, ones that characterize well the cutting edge of thinking about literacy. This is real ongoing science, rather than science as being redefined in documents such as the National Reading Panel (2000) report, which is merely a selective history and interpretation of past scientific work, These authors are doing what characterizes good science-carefully researching problems that have not been well studied as the start of a journey to a brighter future for literacy instruction in American schools. We offer here some suggestions to these journeyers, hoping we can make their trip more interesting for them and significant for future generations of American students.
