Recently I was contacted by an individual seeking spiritual counsel about, among other things, a strange phenomenon he was experiencing. Per my usual policy, I’m not going to identify this individual.

One of the arguments of cultural-literacy folks make for a curriculum that identifies knowledge everybody must learn and books everybody must read is that those core materials are necessary for ...

The purpose of going to school is to learn, but students may find certain topics difficult to understand if they don't have the necessary background knowledge. This is one of the conclusions of a ...

It seems like an obvious statement: It’s easier for readers to understand a text they already know something about. But this commonsense idea, backed by research, has big implications for reading ...

Fire Ants. What do you know about them? Turn and talk to the person sitting next to you." My face flushed as I turned to the middle-aged stranger sitting beside me in the workshop. “Um..they sting? Or ...

A literature review synthesizes and analyzes previous research in a field to inform an audience and establish background knowledge. Literature reviews are most often part of a larger work, like a ...

A remarkable long-term study by University of Virginia researchers led by David Grissmer demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that ...

Our testing system is based on the idea that reading comprehension can be measured independently of what kids know, but science indicates otherwise. The American education system rests in large part ...

The Washington Post’s Knowledge Map aims to diminish that frustration by embedding context and background directly in a story. (We wrote about it briefly when it debuted earlier this month.) ...

The latest in our series on the achievement gap. Could the problem be the nation’s focus on teaching skills rather than actual knowledge? Sarah Webb, fifth and eighth grade English Langue Learner ...

Access these resources as a member - it's free! The History behind the Cabinet of George Washington and what he did as a leader. Over the course of time. George Washington was a successful leader when ...