An LCT Examination of Comprehension and Pedagogy in Middle Years English and Science

This study is an investigation of middle years teachers’ understandings of comprehension and their practices in the curriculum domains (Freebody et al., 2013) of English and Science in Years 5 to 8. Teacher knowledge and understanding of disciplinary literacy and comprehension in the context of curriculum content are areas of new understanding that have emerged as academic literacy demands increase for students entering the middle years of schooling. “The challenge of teaching reading comprehension is heightened in the current educational era because all students are expected to read more text and more complex texts” (Snow, 2002 p.15) across multiple curriculum domains, and demonstrate their understanding of text and content in discipline-specific ways. To achieve this, multi-faceted comprehension instruction is required, embedded within the content, to bring about deeper understandings of disciplinary knowledge.