Abstract
Excerpt: The perceived crisis in reading achievement may be misplaced-the real crisis may be what is ignored in the curriculum. We are alarmed at the lack of emphasis being placed on teaching content knowledge in many of today's classrooms. We laugh when Jay Leno takes to the street, interviewing teenagers and young adults who do not have the slightest idea about world events, leaders, or places; some of them don't even know who Winston Churchill was, or when the United States gained its independence. Teachers must wonder what these former students have learned in the classroom. Although this popular segment succeeds in making us laugh, we educators don't find it funny when we encounter students in classrooms who know just as little about the world we inhabit as those on "The Tonight Show." Students' lack of content knowledge (prior knowledge pertaining to the topics of the text) is becoming apparent, as measured by such reading comprehension assessments as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (Bracey, 2006).