Informing the Science of Reading: Students' Awareness of Sentence-Level Information Is Important for Reading Comprehension

The reading wars were fought over the importance of sentence- versus word-level information to students' reading. As the field considers new debates on the science of reading, we argue here that sustained empirical inquiry into the role of sentence-level information in students' reading skill is needed. These investigations could be particularly useful in identifying ways to support reading comprehension. In this article, we review theories pointing to this possibility, as well as key pieces of available empirical evidence. We also identify crucial gaps in knowledge, as the field must assess the mechanisms by which this relation functions, which will inform instruction, and potential changes in this relation across development and across aspects of this skill. Advancement in each of these areas will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the relation between sentence-level skills and reading comprehension, which can inform effective instruction in the classroom.