Direction-Setting Activities in Reading Comprehension: A Comparison of Two Approaches

Abstract

Two direction-setting activities designed to increase high-school LD students' comprehension of important concepts during content area instruction were compared. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two instructional groups. The first group was taught with prereading activities based on a basal approach to teaching comprehension. The major focus of this condition was on (a) developing student interest and motivation, (b) highlighting the relevance of the passage to the students' past experience, and (c) offering a general introductory discussion. The second group received instruction using an advance organizer in the form of a text outline designed to help students process information from the text. Daily instructional sessions lasted 50 minutes and continued for 9 school days. The dependent measures consisted of (a) three probe tests administered at the end of each 3-day unit and (b) a 12-item posttest. Results indicated that on both dependent measures the advance-organizer group significantly outperformed the basal group. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the development of teaching strategies for LD students.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

T.H.

Armbruster

B.B.

(1981). Studying. In Pearson

P.D.

(Ed.), Handbook on reading research (pp. 657–679). New York: Longman.)

Beck

I.L.

McCaslin

E.S.

McKeown

M.G.

(1981). Basal readers' purpose for story reading: Smoothly paving the road or setting up a detour? Elementary School Journal, 81, 156–160.

Darch

Carnine

(in press). Approaches to teaching learning disabled students comprehension during content area instruction. Exceptional Children.

Darch

Carnine

Kameenui

(in press). Content area instruction: The role of information organization, learner strategies, and task structure. Reading Research Quarterly.

Dansereau

D.F.

Collins

K.W.

McDonald

B.A.

Holley

C.D.

Garland

Actkinson

T.R.

Diekhoff

G.M.

Evans

S.H.

(1979). Evaluation of a learning strategy system. In O'Neal

H.F.

Jr. Speilserger

C.D.

(Eds.), Cognitive and affective learning strategies (pp. 123–145). New York: Academic Press.)

Duffy

G.G.

(1983). From turn taking to sensemaking: Broadening the concept of reading teacher effectiveness. Journal of Educational Research, 76, 134–139.

Durkin

(1981). Reading comprehension instruction in five basal reading series. Reading Research Quarterly, 4, 515–544.

Durr

W.K.

LePere

J.M.

Bean

R.M.

Glaser

N.A.

Evanhardt

K.S.

(1983). Beacon's teacher's guide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Engelmann

Carnine

(1982). Theory of instruction: Principles and applications. New York: Irvington Publishers.

10.

Forrest-Pressley

D.L.

Gillies

L.A.

(1983). Children's flexible use of strategies during reading. In Pressley

Levin

J.R.

(Eds.), Cognitive strategy research: Educational applications (pp. 133–152). New York: Springer-Verlag.)

11.

Gall

M.D.

(1977). The importance of context variables in research on teaching skills. Journal of Teacher Education, 28, 43–48.

12.

Geva

(1983). Facilitating reading comprehension through flowcharting. Reading Research Quarterly, 18, 384–405.

13.

Klauer

K.J.

(1984). Intentional and incidental learning with instructional texts: A meta-analysis for 1970–1980. American Educational Research Journal, 21, 323–339.

14.

Leong

C.K.

(1983). Promising areas of research into learning disabilities with emphasis on reading disabilities. In Das

J.P.

Mulcahy

R.F.

Wall

A.E.

(Eds.), Theory and research in learning disabilities (pp. 3–26). New York: Plenum Press.)

15.

Pearson

D.P.

(1984). Direct explicit teaching of reading comprehension. In Duffy

G.G.

Roeler

L.R.

Mason

(Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Perspectives & suggestions (pp. 222–233). New York: Longman.)

16.

Rosenshine

(1983). Teaching functions in instructional programs. The Elementary School Journal, 83, 335–351.

17.

Ross

A.O.

(1980). Psychological disorders of children: A behavioral approach to theory, research, and therapy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

18.

Sachs

(1983). The effects of prereading activities on learning disabled students' reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6, 248–251.