ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews three lines of research that explore why expository texts are so hard to understand, and what features of instructional contexts are needed for students to acquire deep comprehension of subject matter as they read. One line investigates conditions that underlie successful understanding of (as opposed to memory for) explanatory, expository science texts. A second examines comprehension across multiple documents. The third focuses on metacomprehension (the ability of readers to assess their own levels of comprehension). All three show the importance of the reader adopting an appropriate task or activity model that supports reading for understanding, as well as engaging in constructive processing at the level of the situation model to achieve deep comprehension.
