This study investigated the effectiveness of the Vocabulary Overview Guide in improving vocabulary comprehension and retention of terms from connected discourse. The guide incorporates a graphic organizer to relate text information, personal clues to associate terms with background knowledge, and a selfmonitoring checklist to assess understanding. This strategy was compared to a traditional method of listing and studying definitions. Subjects, developmental college readers, were administered pretests, posttests, and delayed posttests. An Analysis of Variance indicated that the Vocabulary Overview Guide group was significantly superior to the traditional group in improving vocabulary comprehension and retention and in increasing metacognitive awareness on post and delayed posttests.
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