About

Peter Afflerbach is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland. His professional focus is on education, with an emphasis on teaching, learning, and policy. As a distinguished member of the faculty, he has contributed to the academic community through his research and leadership in education. His contact email is afflo@umd.edu.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Mathematics education
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Thermodynamics
• Programming language
• Communication

Selected publications

• Assessment of Reading

  Elsevier eBooks · 2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Assessment in Language Arts Classrooms

  2023-12-05

  book-chapterSenior author

  This chapter examines specific assessment areas and issues in Language Arts classrooms, focusing on a series of promises and challenges. The chapter begins with a discussion of societal forces that shape—or force—certain assessment choices and documents the insidious influence of testing. Ahn and Afflerbach examine the consequences of assessment and describe the nature of formative and summative assessment. They also examine advances in assessing students’ digital literacy and consider the assessment of powerful influences on reading development and achievement, including motivation and engagement, self-efficacy, and metacognition. The authors conclude with an examination of students’ self-assessment and how teachers can foster this essential strategy set.

  PublisherDOI

• Advances and Missed Opportunities in the Development of the 2026 NAEP Reading Framework

  Literacy Research Theory Method and Practice · 2022-08-11 · 5 citations

  article

  The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Reading aims to measure reading comprehension for students in the United States and to monitor progress in our education system. NAEP Reading is developed based on an assessment framework document that is periodically revised to reflect the latest understandings about reading comprehension and its assessment. A key goal of the Visioning Panel (VP) and the Development Panel (DP) charged with updating the NAEP Reading Assessment Framework for 2026 was to lay the foundation for an assessment that made progress toward greater fairness, equity, and validity. In this essay, we discuss how the Framework development process unfolded and its results. We document the unusual ways the National Assessment Governing Board (“the Board”) shaped the development process. We provide evidence that a small group of Board members aimed to preserve the status quo in reading assessment by downplaying reliance on expertise and authoritative sources of research on reading, learning, and assessment and by removing attention to equity in NAEP Reading. We also discuss both successful (i.e., approved by the Board) and unsuccessful (i.e., rejected by the Board) recommendations for changes to the 2026 Framework that initially were proposed by the DP. We end by considering how, despite the efforts of the small group of Board members, we as a literacy field can improve the nature and impact of our large-scale reading assessments, and NAEP in particular.

  PublisherDOI

• How the Reading for Understanding Initiative’s Research Complicates the Simple View of Reading Invoked in the Science of Reading

  Reading Research Quarterly · 2020 · 104 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics education
  • Psychology

  Abstract Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. The SVR, which describes comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension, also served as the primary theoretical model underlying the Reading for Understanding (RfU) initiative. Research funded under the RfU initiative included direct examinations of the validity of the SVR and the nature of its underlying components and extended the SVR in studies of middle school and high school readers. In this article, the authors use research conducted under the RfU initiative to examine the validity and utility of the SVR, in general, and the appropriateness of its application in the “science of reading” debate. RfU research has provided not only evidence in support of the overall SVR model but also important cautions relevant to the “science of reading” debate. In particular, RfU has provided evidence regarding the significance of the listening comprehension component of the SVR, often overlooked by advocates of the science of reading. This research has documented the importance of early oral language skills, which support both decoding and listening comprehension in young readers and plays a critical role in students’ success as readers as they move through school. In addition, RfU research has identified a complicated constellation of skills and knowledge that impact reading comprehension as students advance in school.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 50 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics education

  This chapter focuses on reading comprehension strategies instruction. We begin the chapter by noting that a lack of consistency in conceptualizing strategies poses immediate challenges to effective instruction. Then, we provide an overview of the evolution of reading comprehension strategy research and related instruction research, especially in relation to theoretical models of reading. We next consider contemporary concerns with strategy instruction, in conjunction with the pressing need for students’ enhanced reading comprehension strategies. We propose that instruction that focuses on students’ reading comprehension strategies (a form of procedural knowledge) must be supported by related declarative knowledge, conditional knowledge, epistemic knowledge and disciplinary knowledge. We conclude the chapter with ideas about future directions for both reading comprehension strategy research and instruction.

  PublisherDOI

• Game Changers in Reading Research

  2020-06-02 · 3 citations

  book-chapter

  The contrast between the racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of predominantly monolingual, white, female teachers and their plurilingual, racialized, religiously and culturally diverse student populations is a game changer, especially when considering that reading instruction and research can be skewed toward assumptions of universal childhoods. Reading assessment, as part of the overall testing context, has been addressed in multiple chapters as a game changer for researchers who have developed innovative approaches to contextualizing and illuminating students’ knowledge, language skills, and motivations to read. As authors describes, the world is changing; societies are changing. Correspondingly, the work of educating the population is changing. These changes result from the complex dynamics of local and distant politics, economics, and preferences for particular reading research and practice. Finally, reading researchers need to ascertain how knowledge and knowledge production matter for children and youth, their teachers, school leaders, and those who influence reading policies in schools and school systems.

  PublisherDOI

• Handbook of Reading Research, Volume V

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 25 citations

  • Philosophy
  • Linguistics
  • Physics

  This paper discusses the use of video data in reading research and describes potential directions and application of video data in this area of scholarship. The chapter describes existing literature and trends in video data collection, storage, archiving, and use in studying teaching and learning, and then turns to discuss the evolution in video technologies for educational research. Next, the paper discusses use of video data in qualitative and quantitative research in reading, important practices for storing and retrieving video data, and potential future directions in studying reading processes, practices, contexts, and outcomes. The chapter concludes with a description of our current study, Teaching over Time, which uses English Language Arts (ELA) classroom video data collected recently, as well as video data from the same teachers ten years ago, which were stored and archived for future scholarship. Techniques for documenting, storing, labeling, and archiving made this study and use of video data possible to analyze ELA instruction, contexts, and changes in teachers’ practice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Qualitative Approaches to the Verbal Protocol Analysis of Strategic Processing

  2020-01-27 · 5 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  In this chapter, we examine qualitative approaches to verbal protocol analysis and their role in constructing detailed accounts of strategic processing. To that end, we draw from diverse studies in the area of reading in which qualitative protocol data is extensively used to catalog and describe the readers’ strategies engaged with a variety of texts, tasks, and goals. We argue for the importance of investigating strategic processing in reading, examine the scientific merits of qualitative verbal protocol analysis in examining such strategic processing, and discuss critical issues in the qualitative analysis of verbal protocol data and suggest possible means of addressing the issues to undertake rigorous analyses of strategic processing.

  PublisherDOI

• Concluding Thoughts from the Editors

  2020-06-02

  book-chapter

  The dynamics associated with this evolution can be observed in competing models of reading, the waxing and waning of large-scale standards-based initiatives, the related changes in reading instruction as teachers pivot in relation to standards, and claims about what teachers need to learn and do to teach reading well. Alternatively, the research may be imported initially from affiliated fields, such as motivation and learning, and sociocultural influences on cognition, and then serve as foundation for ensuing inquiry focused on reading. As an editorial team, they are appreciative that the author teams agreed, a priori, to go beyond the more traditional research synthesis and critique to employ the gaps frame, and suggest school and classroom applications that hold promise for improving reading instruction and student achievement. By taking this approach to reviewing the research, the authors have taken important steps in addressing gaps and elaborating on the game changers of our time.

  PublisherDOI

• Aligning Curriculum and Assessment in Early Reading Education

  2019-03-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Peter Afflerbach sets out a four-part process: (1) define literacy; (2) identify the skills and knowledge needed to acquire literacy; (3) develop a curriculum and instruction that supports students acquiring those skills and knowledge; and (4) design an assessment to measure how well the curriculum and instruction build the skills and knowledge students need. In this chapter, he suggests three factors that are critical to learning the skills and knowledge of literacy: (1) motivation, (2) self-efficacy, and (3) metacognition. He also suggests that measures of these three factors should be added to formative and summative assessments.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Byeong‐Young Cho

  12 shared

• Peter H. Johnston

  10 shared

• Michael Pressley

  5 shared

• John T. Guthrie

  Edwards (United Kingdom)

  4 shared

• Jong‐Yun Kim

  4 shared

• P. David Pearson

  3 shared

• Elizabeth Birr Moje

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  3 shared

• Nonie K. Lesaux

  Harvard University

  3 shared