Comprehension monitoring skills of reading-disabled/learning-disabled students and normally-achieving students

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the use of comprehension monitoring skills of fifth- and seventh-grade reading-disabled/learning-disabled and normally-achieving children under different levels of reading difficulty. A reading level design was used whereby reading-disabled students were compared with younger normally-achieving matches on measures of comprehension accuracy and comprehension monitoring performance. Contrary to the hypotheses of the present study, the results showed that reading-disabled/learning-disabled (RD/LD) students generally made more errors on the comprehension monitoring tasks than their normally-achieving/instructional reading-level matches (NA/IRLMs) even when reading difficulty was controlled. The RD/LDs also made different types of errors which are indicative of different types of monitoring strategies. The error patterns of seventh-grade RD/LDs suggest the use of top-down strategies (Bobrow & Norman, 1975). The error pattern of fifth-grade RD/LDs suggest the use of bottom-up strategies. Neither of the RD/LD groups appear to use an effective balance of top-down and bottom-up strategies. The relatively high error rates of RD/LD students do not seem to put them at a disadvantage for comprehension as measured in the present study. Interpretations of these findings and directions for further research are discussed