Comprehension instruction is often associated with skills such as identifying a text's main idea and supporting details, or practicing strategies like summarizing to make meaning. But if a reader doesn’t have sufficient knowledge of the topic, doesn’t know what many of the words mean, or is confused by how a sentence is worded, the reader cannot comprehend the text (even if decoding isn’t a problem). The reader can’t “main idea” or summarize something not understood. Comprehension is not a set of skills we can teach that are generalizable to all passages. Instead, we must focus on developing a strong foundation of generalizable skills.