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DOI: 10.1177/105345129803300403

1998 33: 209Intervention in School and Clinic Philip N. Swanson and Susan De La Paz

Teaching Effective Comprehension Strategies to Students with Learning and Reading Disabilitie

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Teaching Effective Comprehension

Strategies to Students with Learning

and Reading Disabilities

PH IL IP N. SWAN SON AND SUSAN DE LA PAZ

In this article, we summarize several metacogni-

tive strategies designed to improve reading

comprehension

in

students with learning

and

reading disabilities and describe an instructional

model showing ow to teach comprehension

strategies to students. Each recommend ed strat

egy has been formally evaluated a nd found to be

effective for improving students reading com

prehension. Practical suggestions are also

provided to help teachers implement these

strategies in their classrooms.

roficient readers typically execute

one or

more

metacognitive behaviors

as

they read.

For

exam

ple

as

they read this article, teachers may consid

er using

one of the

recommended comprehen

sion strategies

in

their classrooms, leading them

to form questions such

as, How can I

modify these

strategies

to

better meet

the

needs

of my

students?

After reading, they

may

also choose

to

make

a

brief

summary

of

the procedures necessary7

for

teaching a

spe-

Photo

by

ance Schriner

cific strategy. Moreover,

for

details they cannot recall,

some readers will look back until they locate

the

infor

mation they need

and

then reread that section. These

are examples

of

some

of the

strategies good readers

use

to promote comprehension. Many competent readers

ar e

not

aware that these actions require metacognitive

skills;

rather, good comprehenders engage

in

these

strategic behaviors because they have proven, over time,

to

be

useful (Pressley

et al.,

1995).

In

addition, profi

cient adult readers seldom recall being explicitly taught

how to

comprehend text; nevertheless, they have become

strategic readers.

Researchers have consistently demonstrated that poor

readers, unlike good readers,

do not

acquire strategic

reading behaviors

by

themselves,

and

that poor readers

need

to be

taught how, where,

and

when

to

consistently

carry

out

such procedures.

For

example, Garner

and

Reis (1981) noted that poor readers

do not

look back

to

reread sections

in

their texts

as

often

as

good readers,

and they fail

to

monitor their comprehension. Raphael

and Pearson (1985) found that poor readers often seem

INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC

VOL. 33, No. 4, MARCH 1998 PP.

209-218)

209







to ignore or be unaware that different assignments pose

different kinds of questions (whether, for example, ques

tions are literal, require an integration of the text, or rely

on prior knowledge), and they often use strategies that

are inappropriate for task requirements. In addition,

according to Oakhill and Patel (1991), poor readers do

not make inferences from text and do not integrate ideas

from different parts of the text in order to create accu

rate representations. Even when such students are able

to decode words correctly, they typically do not attend to

the meaning of the passage, relate what is being read to

their previous knowledge, or monitor their own com

prehension (Bos & Vaughn, 1994). The refore , students

who have difficulty comprehending text need to be

taught explicitly how to carry out appropriate strategies

so that their reading comprehension improves.

Although emerging and poor readers tend not to

read strategically, resulting in limited comprehension of

text, researchers have criticized how classroom teachers

usually teach reading comprehension. Durkin (1979)

observed several general education fourth-grade class

rooms and found less than 1% of the total time devoted

to reading instruction was spent explicitly teaching stu

dents to comprehend texts. She further noted that when

instruction did occur, teachers merely monitored stu

dents '

comprehension by asking questions after they fin

ished reading a passage, rather than teaching specific

procedures to help students improve their comprehen

sion skills. Similar findings were reported by Duffy and

Mclntyre (1982), who observed primary-grade teachers

in Grades 1 throug h 6.

In response to such findings, theorists and interven

tion researchers have developed numerous strategies

that students can be taught directly to help them

impro ve their reading com preh ensio n skills. To briefly

summarize these approaches, students are shown various

frameworks, models, or

strategies

for understanding and

interpreting written information. Students are also

taught

self regulatory

procedures, such as self-monitoring,

to help them become aware of and execute specific cog

nitive behaviors aimed at helping them understand what

they read. These procedures become metacognitive

strategies when students intentionally recruit and use

them to meet various task demands. These strategies

may be thought of as scaffolds, which support and facili

tate learners as they internalize procedures, or heuristics,

which allow them to successfully complete comprehen

sion tasks (Harris & Graham, 1996).

Teachers obviously share the common goal of helping

students with learning and reading problems to view

reading as more than a required activity done each day in

reading class; rather, teachers want students to see read

ing as an activity that occurs in m any settings and for dif

ferent purposes—reading for a history class, reading a

novel for relaxation, taking a test during a job applica

tion, or following direction s for setting a VC R. By

teaching students a variety of reading comprehension

strategies and helping them learn to use them indepen-

dendy, teachers help students to develop an arsenal of

approaches to com prehend texts regardless of the specif

ic task or situation. Thus, when situations arise that

require comp rehending new text, students will be able to

reflect upon the battery of strategies they know and

determine which will be appropriate for helping in a

given situation.

O V E R A L L A P P R O A C H

Pressley and colleagues (1995), as well as numerous

othe r intervention r esearchers (e.g., Co llins, 1997; Ellis,

1994;

S. Grah am, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1997),

have advocated teaching students strategies in contexts

that are relevant and appropriate for their use. Thus,

strategies are not taught as curricular options in and of

themselves (Deshler & Shumaker, 1986); rather, they are

integrated as part of the regular program (Harris &

Graham, 1992, 1996). Students learn to use strategies as

the need arises and when a particular set of heuristics is

appropriate for an assigned task (Pressley et al., 1995). In

addition to this basic principle, teachers need to under

stand bo w to teach comp rehension strategies so that stu

dents will learn to use them autonomously. Intervention

researchers have used different terms to describe their

teaching mo dels; S. Graham , Harris, and colleagues (G ra

ham, Ha rris, MacA rthur, & Schwartz, 1991 ; Harris &

Graham, 1992, 1996) have used the term self regulated

strategy

development

(SRSD), for example, whereas Ellis

(1994) has used the phrase integrated

strategies

instruc

tion. Instructional supports underlying these approaches

are similar; however, when describing ho w to teach one

or more of the strategies in this article, we have gener

ally adopted the SRSD model (Harris & Graham, 1992,

1996; see Figu re 1).

Readers should keep the following general points in

mind as they prepare to teach specific comprehension

strategies. First, start with simple materials (i.e., easier

reading levels) to ensure initial success; then help stu

dents practice using a given comprehension strategy

with more challenging text. Second, individualize

instruction by deciding (a) what strategy is most likely to

benefit a given group of students, (b) which type of

self-

regulatory procedure is relevant for each student, and

(c) how to give specific feedback to each student to mon

itor his or her progress in using the target strategy and

overall success in comprehending text. Third, teachers

should realize that it may be hard, initially, to fade

instructional supports (such as prompting) because stu

dents are often unsure whether they are implementing

various components of the strategy correctly. Finally,

students with learning and reading disabilities must be

explicitly taught to generalize whichever metacognitive

210 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC







t ^

1.

Describe the target compreh ension strategy. Explicitly describe the strategy

steps, and discuss why the strategy should be used, what it accomplishes, and

when and where the strategy may be used.

2. Activate background knowledge. Review information students may have

learned previously that is necessary for learning the target strategy.

3. Review current performance

level

Provide feedback to students regarding their

current level of functioning and reiterate potential benefits of the strategy.

Goals for and commitment by the students should be reached collaboratively.

4.

Modeling

of

the strategy and

self instructions.

Demonstrate how to use the

strategy in a meaningful context, and use relevant self-regulatory behaviors by

thinking out-loud. Self-statements include ideas such as What should I do

first? I am using this strategy so that I can understand what I am reading

better../'; or I need to take my time, which show students the purpose of the

procedures and how to manage their performance.

5. Co llaborative practice. Provide several opportunities for student practice using

the strategy and self-statements as a whole class, in small groups, or in pairs.

Monitor students' progress in following the strategy steps. Facilitate students'

success in using the strategies by prompting them to complete steps if they are

omitted or by providing assistance in completing strategy steps accurately. It

may be necessary to reexplain or model some of the more difficult aspects of

the strategies, based on student need.

6. Independent practice and mastery. After determining that the students know

and understand the steps of the strategy, each student practices using the

target strategy and self-statements without

help.

Continue to give guidance,

reinforcement, and feedback. Gradually fade assistance until each student is

capable of using the strategy without any help.

7.

Generalization.

Discuss with students throughout the week whenever situations

arise where it is appropriate for students to apply the strategies. In addition,

during collaborative and independent practice sessions, provide students with

different types of

materials

(e.g., lookbacks are useful with narratives, exposi

tory text such as science book chapters, and learning rules to play a game) so

that students learn to use the strategies flex ibly.

^

Figure 1.

Self regiilated strategy development model for teaching strategies.

V O L

33 No 4

M A R C H

199B 211







strategy teachers expect them to use. To help students

master and generalize use of a given strategy, teachers

should show students how to monitor and keep track of

their progress.

It is also important to begin strategy instruction by

teaching just one or two strategies at a rime. New strate

gies are introduced only when earlier ones are well

established. Also, as with strategy instruction in any con

tent area, mastery takes time, and students are not likely

to improve their performance after one or two lessons.

The strategies described in this article may take up to

several days of practice before students can use them

independently. It should also be recalled that strategies

do not need to be taught as a separate part of the cur

riculum and that simply instructing students how to use

strategic reading behaviors should not be a goal in and of

itself.

Rather, they should be taught in context, when and

where reading comprehension is necessary.

Several strategies are described in this article, all of

which have empirical support for being effective in

improving students' reading comprehension. Although

some of the comprehension research has been conducted

with students not identified as having learning and read

ing disabilities, these strategies nonetheless provide a

range of activities appropriate for many comprehension

skills required by students at different grade levels.

Further, the SRSD model for teaching strategies is espe

cially useful, given that it has been proved to be success

ful for teaching strategies to students with and without

learning disabilities in several academic content areas,

including writing

(Danoff,

Harris, & Graham, 1993, De

La Paz & Graham, 1997) and mathematics (Case,

Harris, & Graham, 1992).

S U M M A R I Z I N G

E X P O S I T O R Y T E X T

Beginning in upper elementary school, students must

use their reading (i.e., decoding and comprehension)

skills in classes such as science and social studies to learn

new information. After reading a text, whether narrative

or expository, students are frequently expected to recall

main ideas and concepts from the assigned passage and

to provide support for their decisions. To do this, they

must process the content and determine which ideas are

important. Researchers have found that teaching stu

dents in regular education classrooms how to summarize

expository text after reading has resulted in improved

comprehension and memory of the information (e.g.,

Bean & Steenwyk, 1984; Rinehart, Stahl, & Erickson,

1986; Taylor & Beach, 1984). Many summarization

strategies can be taught, including gist, rule-governed

summaries, and hierarchical summaries.

Gist Summaries

RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION. Gist summaries are

those in which students use single sentences to summa

rize information found in single paragraphs. Bean and

Steenwyk (1984) found this strategy to be effective in

increasing reading comprehension with general education

sixth graders who read isolated expository paragraphs. A

similar approach was used as part of a multicomponent,

peer-mediated instructional package developed by

Simmons, Fuchs, Fuchs, Hodge, and Mathes (1994) in

which students with low achievement, average achieve

ment, and learning disabilities in Grades 2 through 5

created gist summaries of main ideas in single para

graphs.

How TO TEACH. To teach students to create a gist of

what they are summarizing, show them how to restate

important information using a minimum number of

words. This can be done by starting with a single expos

itory sentence, rather than a paragraph, and requiring

students to retell the main idea. After students are suc

cessful, two sentences of text are retold, in 15 words or

fewer. This procedure is gradually expanded until stu

dents are able to summarize an entire paragraph in 15

words or fewer. Guidance and feedback are necessary so

that students become skilled in retelling only the most

important information. When reviewing students

current performance level, goal setting may be espe

cially useful to help motivate students (see Note). They

can set goals (for example, to limit the number of words

when attempting to create a summary or to include con

tent from a specific number of sentences in one main

idea statement), monitor their progress, and then set

increasingly ambitious goals as they become more profi

cient in creating gist summaries.

Rule-Governed Summaries

RATIONALE

AND DESCRIPTION.

Rule-governed sum

maries are created by following an established set of

rules. The reader is guided through a process of elimi

nating information that is not essential and reworking

the remainder into a condensed format. In their 1984

investigation on the use of gist summaries, Bean and

Steenwyk also examined the use of rule-governed sum

maries for single paragraphs of expository text with

general education sixth-grade students. Their results

indicated that rule-governed summaries were even more

beneficial than gist summaries for the participating stu

dents. Rinehart et al. (1986) used a similar set of rules to

teach students at the same grade level how to summarize

multiple paragraphs of expository text.

The work of Bean and Steenwyk (1984) and Rinehart

et al. (1986) suggests that the most useful rules are

(a) delete trivial information, (b) delete important but

redundant information, (c) compose a word to replace

either a list or individual components of an action,

(d) select or create a topic sentence, and (e) relate the

important supporting information. Once the students

are able to effectively use rules to summarize single para-

212 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL ANO CLINIC







graphs, they are ready to learn to summarize multiple

paragraphs

and

extended passages. Additional rules

are

to (a) create summaries of each paragraph, (b) write a

summary of the paragraph summaries, and (c) use the

previous summarization rules on this synopsis.

HOW TO

TEACH.

Because this strategy depends on a

set of rules, students must understand and learn what

those rules

are

prior

to

summarizing text. Thus,

activat

ing students background knowledge is important

when teaching the rule-governed summarization strat

egy.

In

other words,

the

teacher must begin

by

defining

what is meant by the terms important information,

trivial or redundant information, and topic sentences.

The teacher must also demonstrate how to generate

acronyms (such as HOMES to represent the names of

each of the Great Lakes). Students will need several

opportunities to practice following these directions

before they

are

able

to

demonstrate competence

in

creating rule-governed summaries, and they will need

guidance

and

feedback during

collaborative and inde

pendent practice

about their performance

as

they

attempt to create their summaries. In addition, to illus

trate how comprehension strategies can be combined

into more complex instructional routines, students can

be taught

to

turn each summarization rule into

a

ques

tion as they complete each step (e.g., Did I delete triv

ial information? ), thus incorporating

a

self-questioning

procedure (to be discussed in more detail later in this

article) to self-monitor use of the rule-governed summa

rization strategy.

Hierarchical Summaries

RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION.

The

basic premise

underlying hierarchical summaries

is

that good readers

notice and make use of th e way ideas are organized in text

books to help them form a macrostructure, or mental

organization, of the important information that needs to

be remembered (Taylor, 1982). Hierarchical summaries

make

use of

text structure inherent

in

most expository

texts, using chapter, section, and subsection headings

found

in

each chapter.

To use

this strategy, students

are

taught to skim the first few pages of the chapter or pas

sage,

paying close attention to the headings. They then

carefully read each subsection of the passage and create

an outline

of the

entire passage consisting

of an

overall

heading, main idea statements from each subsection, and

supporting information and topic headings. Taylor

and Beach (1984) taught seventh-grade students

in

gen

eral education classes to create hierarchical summaries

when reading several pages of a social studies text, and

they found that this strategy effectively improved stu

dents' comprehension of unfamiliar material.

How TO TEACH. Students first skim

the

entire read

ing selection, carefully noting headings and subheadings.

IT™

i

( - •

Step 3 Key idea for entire pa ssag e

S t e p 2

Topic heading

{with lines connecting

simitar topics

A

Ste p 2

Topic heading

^

X

\

\

t

Stepl

for the first subsection)

Main idea sentence

Supporting detail sentence


f

Repeat Step 1

for each subsection)

Main idea sentence



1

Repeat Step 1

for each subsection)

Main idea sentence



il

J

s J

Figure 2 . Steps to creating a hierarchical summary based on

data from llairis

Graham,

1992,

1996).

Then they are to create an outline of their summary on

lined paper, using a specific format (see Figure 2). This

format requires (a) space at the top of the page for the

major heading,

(b)

capital letters spaced down

the

page

for each subsection of text designated by a heading, and

(c) space provided

in the

left margin

to

write topic head

ings and draw lines that connect related subsections.

Figure 2 illustrates the steps for creating a hierarchical

summary. After creating their skeletal outline, students

reread each subsection of the passage. They first select

two to three words from the subsection heading that

reflect the topic of the subsection and use these words to

create a sentence that reflects the most important idea

about that topic. Then, under

the

main idea sentence,

students write two or three sentences that contain details

about the topic and are important to remember. This

procedure is repeated for each subsection of the passage.

Second, after writing a main idea and two to three sup

porting detail sentences for each subsection, students

generate topic headings, relating similar topics when

ever possible. Third ,

in

their

own

words, students create

a key idea for the entire passage that serves as the major

heading.

To

illustrate

how a

hierarchical summary might

look, Figure 3 shows a completed hierarchical summary

for a seventh-grade social studies textbook selection on

India.

When first presenting this strategy to students,

describe the strategy using graphic organizers and

examples such

as

those

in

Figures

2 and

3. Teachers

may

wish to tell students that one reason why they are learn

ing the hierarchical summarization strategy is that after

VOL.

33 No. 4

MARCH

1998 213







Landforms

Climate.

India has a varied landscape and climate.

A. Much of India's border is coastline.

The Arabian Sea is to the west.

The Indian Ocean is to the south.

To the east is the Bay of Bengal.

B

The Ganges River is an important Indian River.

The Ganges begins in the Himalayan

Mountains, runs through the Ganges Plain,

and empties Into

the Bay of

Bengal.

The

Ganges is very important to the religious

life of many Indians.

C The Deccan Plateau is important for the economy.

It Is located in the south.

The Deccan Plateau has fertile farmland

and forests.

There are rich deposits of minerals there.

' D. Most of India is warm or hot most of the year.

The Himalayas block cold northern air

from coming into India.

>

E. The monsoons are essential for water.

The monsoons are seasonal winds.

During the rainy season they bring moist air

from the Indian Ocean.

People depend upon the monsoons for water

to live and farm with.

Figure

3.

An

example

of a

hierarchical summary

for

a

social

studies textbook selection

on

India.

learning this strategy, students in sixth and seventh grade

were better able to summarize material, and that this

skill in turn helped them remember more information

they had read than students who didn't learn this strate

gy. This description also suggests to students what the

strategy accomplishes, and it suggests when and where it

may be useful. Further discussion about the usefulness of

the hierarchical summarization strategy should focus on

tasks and situations relevant to a specific group of stu

dents.

It is also important for teachers to plan how to

teach students to generalize what they have learned

with any of the summarization strategies presented in

this section. To begin this process, teachers should pro

vide students with a wide variety of reading materials and

discuss different situations in which the various strate

gies can be used to help enhance comprehension.

C O M P R E H E N D I N G S T O R Y S T R U C T U R E

Anthropologic studies have demonstrated that when

people retell stories that they have read or heard, these

retellings, across many cultures, share certain similarities

(Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine, 1990). Gen

erally, narratives written in Western cultures include

some reference to setting (telling who characters are,

and where and when the story occurs) and an initiating

event, or problem or goal that the main character must

face at the beginning of the story. Subsequently, the

character makes an attempt, or series of actions, to solve

the problem or reach the goal. Eventually some sort of

resolution, or end to the story, happens. Characters may

also have reactions (internal or external) to the problem

or resolution. Numerous researchers have used this story

structure, often called story grammar, to help students

organize, analyze, and remember the content of stories.

Students are taught to recognize story structure to help

them retell and to make inferences, characterizations,

judgments, and predictions, as well as to determine the

author's purpose in writing the story.

Story Maps

RATIONALE

AND DESCRIPTION. Researchers

(e.g.,

Carnine & Kinder, 1985; Dimino, Gersten, Carnine, &

Blake, 1990; Gurney et al., 1990; Johnson, Graham,

& Harris, 1997; Short & Ryan, 1984) have consistently

demonstrated the benefits of using story grammar to

map narratives so that general and special education ele

mentary and secondary students improve their reading

comprehension. Story maps are graphic organizers with

story elements used as headings on some kind of teacher-

made worksheet. These headings are used to prompt

students to locate key information from the story, and,

once located, to record it on the graphic organizer.

Support for teaching students to use story mapping as a

comprehension strategy comes from Baumann and

Bergeron (1993) and Idol (1987), who demonstrated that

first-, third-, and fourth-grade students with and without

reading problems improved their comprehension fol

lowing its use in general education classrooms.

HOW TO TEACH. Prior to introducing this strategy to

students, teachers must decide which story grammar ele

ments (and which terminology) are most important for

their students. They must also choose either to have stu

dents record story element information informally or to

use a teacher-generated story map. Story elements may

either be referred to as simple headings (e.g., charac

ter ) or phrased as questions (e.g., Who is this story

about? ). With respect to the SRSD model for teaching

comprehension strategies, teachers must model how to

locate story elements in text and write them down,

whether on lined paper or on a story map. During the

modeling session, teachers should include explicit

self-

instruction statements such as, As I read, I am finding

and listing story elements so that I can understand what

happens next, or, If I can find the problem in the

beginning of this story, I will understand why the char

acter wants to do the next series of actions, to help stu

dents understand the purpose of and how to execute the

strategy steps. During the independent practice and

mastery phase of instruction, teachers should gradually

fade out use of any graphic organizers or prompting so

that students become independent in their use of the

strategy.








S E L F - Q U E S T I O N I N G

Teachers, through the use of questions, direct students

to focus on pertinent information from readings and to

monitor their comprehension. Alternatively, students

can learn to ask themselves questions (which they must

then answer) as a way to improve their own reading

comprehension.

Student-Generated Questioning

RATIONALE AND DESCRIPTION. Intervention research

ers (e.g., Singer & Donlan, 1982; Wong & Jones, 1982)

demonstrated that having students generate their own

questions to answer improves reading comprehension.

Moreover, in a meta-analysis of 68 studies designed

to improve reading comprehension for students with

learning disabilities, Mastropieri, Scruggs, Bakken, and

Whedon (1996) found that interventions including some

type of self-questioning resulted in greater improvement

than instructional approaches that did not include

self-

questioning. Student-generated questioning may take

different forms. For example, students can develop ques

tions about aspects of text they believe are most impor

tant. In addition, students can ask themselves questions

to monitor their comprehension while they read. By cre

ating questions about a reading passage and answering

them, students not only focus on important information,

but also remember it better.

HOW TO TEACH. Students need to learn that good

questions focus directly on important elements of text.

For example, students can be taught to follow Wong and

Jones's (1982) strategy to make up questions about the

main idea in reading passages. The strategy is to (a) ask

yourself what you are studying this passage for, (b) find

the main idea(s) in the paragraph and underline it/them,

(c) think of a question about the main idea you have

underlined and remember what a good question should

be like, (d) learn the answer to your question, and

(e) always look back at your questions and answers to see

how each successive question and answer provide you

with more information.

As an alternative, when reading narratives, students

can be taught to use Singer and Donlan's (1982) strategy,

which incorporates self-questioning with story grammar

elements. In this approach, students answer a general

story grammar question for each element included in

the story. Examples of general questions are as follows:

(a) Who is the leading character? (b) What is the leading

character trying to accomplish? (c) What obstacles does

the leading character encounter? (d) Does the leading

character reach his or her goal? (e) Why did the author

write this story? and (f) What does the author want to

show us about life? Using the general questions as mod

els, students create and answer their own specific ques

tions based on the particular story they are reading.

Modeling and collaborative practice are necessary so

that students learn how to create relevant questions,

regardless of which self-questioning strategy they use.

For example, after reading a passage, teachers not only

create and answer a question, but also discuss why it is a

good question.

Self-Monitoring


Students

can use

questions to ask themselves what they are doing, to help

them follow the steps of a strategy, or to make sure cer

tain steps were completed correctly. Taylor, Harris,

Pearson, and Garcia (1995) cited the work of Gaetz in

their text on teaching reading, in which a question-

answering checklist was used to help average and below-

average fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade readers answer

questions correctly. The students were taught to ask

themselves the following questions: (a) Did I answer all

parts of the question? (b) Did I read the question cor

rectly? (c) Did I say enough to answer the question so

someone else will understand? (d) Did I get ideas from

the text and from my memory so the answer makes

sense? and (e) Did I answer all of the questions? If not,

why?

Chan (1991) devised a different type of list of ques

tions for students with learning disabilities in Grades 5

and 6 to ask themselves when they created summaries:

1.

For deleting redundant information: (a) Does this

sentence repeat what has already been said? (b) Shall

I leave it out? and (c) What is the paragraph mainly

about?

2.

For deleting trivial information: (a) Does this sen

tence tell us anything new or more important?

(b) Shall I leave it out? and (c) What is the paragraph

mainly about?

3. For locating topic sentences: (a) What does the para

graph seem to be about? (b) Does this sentence tell us

anything new or more important than the main idea?

(c) Is my guess right? (d) Which sentence gives the

main idea? and (e) Which answer gives the main idea

of the passage?

4. For identifying implicit main ideas: (a) What does the

paragraph seem to be about? (b) Does this sentence

just tell me more about the main idea? (c) Which

answer gives the main idea? (d) Which answer gives

the main idea of the passage?

How TO TEACH. Self-monitoring checklists can be

developed for almost any comprehension activity stu

dents complete independently. The teacher must try to

anticipate whether students will benefit from questions

that help them understand and execute a given strategy

correctly or from a list of questions that will help them

internalize a given series of strategy steps. While teach-

Voi. 33, No.

4, MARCH 1908 215







ing students to self-monitor, teachers should review with

students how to ask and answer questions and how to

perform the needed actions.

T E X T L O O K B A C K S

A N D

Q U E S T I O N - A N S W E R R E L A T I O N S H I P S

Whether reading expository or narrative material, stu

dents frequendy are asked to locate specific information

or to answer questions about major or minor points in

text. Lookbacks and question-answer relationships are

two strategies to assist students with finding relevant

information from texts.

T e x t L o o k b a c k s

R A T I O N A L E A N D D E S C R I P T I O N . Gar ner and her col

leagues observed that poor readers do not spontaneously

lookback to locate inform ation (Garn er, 1982; Gar ner,

Hare, Alexander, Haynes, & Winograd, 1984; Garner &

Reis, 1981). Even when told they could look back to find

answers to questions, many students thought that it was

illegal to do so and needed teache r confirm ation that

this was allowed (G arne r et al., 1984). Based on this find

ing, Garner and colleagues (Garner, 1982; Garner et al.,

1984; Ga rne r & Reis, 1981) cond ucted a series of stud

ies including both poor and good readers from 4th

through 10th grade to evaluate the effects of teaching

students lookback strategies. Not only did student per

formance on comprehension measures improve in

response to instruction, but also their increased perfor

mance was maintained long after their initial lookback

training.

H o w TO TEACH. Teachers first show students how to

look back in different texts to locate specific inform ation.

It is helpful to model skimming the text to find the most

likely section where the necessary information is located

and then to read carefully to identify the correct answer.

The teacher might say, for example,

The question is asking us which mo untains separate

France rom Spain. I don\ remember, so Vl l

look back

in

the chapter until 1 find it. First, Vll skim over the chap-

ter until I

come

to the

section

w here I think III find the

answer. The first

section

of

chapter is about

the

history

of

France, so the answer

wouldn

be there. The

second

sec-

tion talks about the

people

and culture, so that answer

wouldn be there. The next section is about the landscape.

I think that the answer will be here somewh ere, so Vll

start to look a little more carefully. The first part talks

about

rivers, so Vm not going to worry about that. The

next part talks about mountains. This is where the

answer

probably

will be so I will read this paragraph

carefully.

Here we go it

says

that in the southwest, the

Pyrenees separate France from Spain. So, my answ er to

the

question

is the Pyrenees.

As students work, the teacher should prompt them to

look back and provide several opportunities for practice

and feedback. Collaborat ive and independent prac

tice should begin with short reading selections and

progress to longer passages. Generalization may be

encouraged by providing students with a variety of dif

ferent types of materials to be read (such as science text

books or driving manuals) and by eliciting suggestions

from students regarding other opportunities during the

day when lookbacks may be useful. Because some ques

tions require students to reflect on their prior knowledge

rather than locate information directly in the text, it may

be useful to teach students about the question-answer

relationships strategy as well.

Q u e s t i o n - A n s w e r R e l a t i o n s h i p s


Studen ts often rely

excessively on either b ackgroun d k nowledg e or text infor

mation when asked to read and answer questions

(Raphael, 1984), despite the fact that not all answers

come from text. In contrast, according to Pearson and

Johnson (1978), answers for questions can be text

explicit

(in which the answer is stated explicitly in the text), text

implicit (in which the answ er is inferred from the text,

using information across sentences or paragraphs), and

script

implicit (in which inform ation com es from the stu

dent's own knowledge base). Intervention researchers

have genera ted various term s such as righ t the re,

think and search, and on my ow n (Raphael &

Pearson, 1985; Raphael & Wo nnaco tt, 1985) here ,

hidden, and in my head (L. Grah am & Wo ng, 1993),

or in the boo k and in my head (Raphae l, 1986) to

teach average and poor readers in fourth through sixth

grade to answer literal and inferential questions.

HOW TO TEACH. Students are first shown how to

identify question-answer relationships and are then

given opportunit ies to pract ice labeling quest ions

according to those relationships. It is important for

teachers to stress that both the question and the answer

must be considered to come up with the appropriate

label. Moreover, students must be taught to integrate

knowledge from both texts and their prior knowledge

when answering question s. To differentiate between in

the boo k and in my head questio ns, for example,

teachers can ask students some questions that have

answers in the text and other questions that rely on the

students' own experience. As students answer questions,

teachers should help them determine how they knew the

answers by asking where the answer was in the story or,

if not, how they knew the answer. After students under-








stand these two question -answ er relationships, instruc

tion can be expanded to differentiate betwe en different

types of in the book and in my head relationships

(Raphael, 1986).

S U M M A R Y

The purpose of this article was to show teachers how t o

teach students with learning and reading disabilities

to comprehend the material they read. Researchers have

consistently demonstrated that students with learning

and reading problems can learn metacog nitive com pre

hension strategies and that these strategies help students

improve their understanding of text. Strategies reviewed

in this article emphasize different aspects of reading

comprehension: Some focus on the overall task, whereas

others are more appropriate for helping students locate

minor details. The strategies we reviewed do not address

all (e.g., affective or evaluative) aspects of comprehen

sion; nevertheless, we chose these strategies because

their effectiveness has been well documented with stu

dents with regular or special educational needs.

Although sometimes time-consuming for teachers and

students to learn initially, students can learn to use

strategies independently and thus become equipped to

com prehend what they read in a variety of tea cher-

directed and self-selected situations. Many strategies

may be combined (for example, students may create a

rule-based summ ary of a passage, lookback to find

missing information, and ask themselves questions to

monitor their summarization). Finally, when teaching

students to use one or more of these strategies, we rec

ommend that teachers follow the SRSD model princi

ples to teach strategies to students.

A B O U T

T H E A U T H O R S

Philip N. Swanson, MA, is a doctoral student in special education

at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He worked for 10 years

teaching children with special educational needs from preschool to

high school. Swanson's current interests include teaching metacogni

tive strategies to students with mild to moderate disabilities and

teacher preparation. Susan De La Paz, PhD, is an assistant professor

of special education at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.

She currently conducts intervention research in the area of writing for

elementary and middle school students with learning disabilities.

Address: Susan De La Paz, Department of Special Education, Pea

body College of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, T X 37203; e-mail:

susan.delapaz.@vanderbil t.edu

N O T E

Bold text is used throughout this article to highlight suggestions for

incorporating elements from the SRSD model into teaching compre

hension strategies.

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21 8 INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL AND CLINIC





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