Providing explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies may lead to increased reading comprehension achievement.

Studies: **Alessi, Siegel, Silver, & Barnes,1982; **Mikulecky & Lloyd, 1997; **Rich & Shepherd, 1994

Research Summary: Results from a study of instructional strategies used in workplace literacy settings suggest that providing explicit, as opposed to incidental, instruction in reading comprehension strategies leads to increased reading comprehension achievement (Mikulecky, 1997). The readers in this study were not beginners, reading at roughly GE 6 or higher. The comprehension strategies taught include:

• skimming a text
• reading a text more carefully in order to monitor comprehension
• using headings to help guide the reading process
• focusing on topics in a text.

In another experimental study, instruction in the use of two specific reading comprehension strategies was effective in improving intermediate adult readers' comprehension (Rich & Shepherd, 1994). These were adults with GE scores from high 4 to 7 on a standardized test of reading comprehension.

• Students in one group were taught how to ask themselves questions about a text as they read (who, what, when, where, how, and why questions).
• Students in another group were taught how to verbally summarize a text as they read.
• A third group was taught how to use both strategies as they read.

All students worked in small groups, receiving guided instruction from a teacher who gradually had students take on the teacher's role - leading group questioning or summarizing practice. Students were told how to use the strategies, the rationale for using them, and how to check on or monitor their understanding as they used them. In addition to small group work, students spent a significant portion of each 45 minute lesson, 15 minutes, working on their own applying a strategy as they took practice comprehension tests.

Those who used both strategies or either strategy individually significantly increased their reading comprehension achievement. Contrary to what the researchers had predicted, the combined summarizing and questioning strategy was not more effective than the use of either strategy by itself. Self-questioning seemed to be an especially effective strategy. The total number of sessions, six in all, was small. More time to learn the combined strategy may have been needed.

In a third experimental study, an early but fairly sophisticated form of computer-based instruction was found to improve adults' performance on two comprehension tasks: locating and paraphrasing information in texts (Alessi et al., 1982). Using this program, intermediate adult readers (at GE 4-6 based on a standardized test of reading comprehension) completed forty self-paced reading comprehension lessons in twenty hours over a two-month period. Follow-up testing one month later showed that initial gains had been maintained.

The computer-based lessons included

• Overt, clear presentation of comprehension tasks and concepts
• Passage reading and question answering
• Practice locating information in order to answer literal comprehension questions (who, what, when, where, why, and how questions that could be answered by looking back at the text)
• Practice recognizing paraphrases of sentences in the passages that were read
• Computer monitoring of student progress and mastery of simpler tasks before more difficult ones were presented
• Re-reading the same passages and answering the same questions while making small changes in the content to draw attention to relevant features of a text
• Immediate corrective feedback
• Computer graphics such as boxes, arrows, and underlining to direct student attention

Although students improved their ability to locate and paraphrase information, their new skills did not transfer to a comprehension task that was not taught, recognizing main ideas in passages.