Reading comprehension of expository science material and students with learning disabilities: A comparison of strategies

This study was intended to compare three instructional strategies on the comprehension of expository science material for students with learning disabilities. Fifty-four eighth grade students with learning disabilities were stratified by sex and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) text structure-based strategy; (b) paragraph restatement strategy; or (c) traditional instruction. The text structure-based strategy condition taught students to identify three types of passages: main idea, list, and order, and to apply passage-type specific reading strategies. Prior to instruction all students were administered a pre-instruction strategy survey. All students received three consecutive days of condition-specific, individual instruction and were administered immediate, delayed, and transfer tests of reading comprehension. On the fourth day, students were required to read and study unfamiliar science passages independently and were asked to recall science information from those passages. On the fifth day, a delayed test of science content was administered; students read and studied unfamiliar social studies passages and were asked to recall social studies information; and a post-instruction strategy survey was administered. Performance on each test was scored for the number of central and incidental idea units recalled, using both conservative and less conservative scoring procedures. Results indicated that the text structure-based reading strategy had a significant effect on recall of central and incidental information over traditional instruction on immediate, delayed, and transfer tests, and had significant effects on recall of central, but not incidental information over the paragraph restatement strategy on all measures. Moreover, the paragraph restatement condition statistically outperformed the measures. Moreover, the paragraph restatement condition statistically outperformed the traditional instruction condition on all measures. Parallel findings on all analyses were obtained whether conservative or less conservative scoring procedures were used. All students reported that the strategies were beneficial and that others should learn these strategies. Findings indicate that eighth grade students with learning disabilities can learn, apply, and transfer complex text structure-based strategies