The Effects of Comprehension Monitoring Training on the Reading Competence of Learning Disabled and Regular Class Students

Abstract

Thirty-six 10- to 12-year-old learning disabled (LD) children with reading problems and 36 regular class children matched with the LD children on reading age were assigned to four training conditions, designated as read-reread, self-questioning and underlining, self-questioning only, and underlining only techniques. Training was conducted in small groups over a sequence of four half-hour sessions. Subjects were trained to utilize the prescribed techniques while reading comprehension passages. Results indicated that the LD children in all three experimental groups (SU, S, U) achieved significantly higher scores on the comprehension tests than those in the control (R) condition, whereas data on the regular class students in all four conditions revealed nonsignificant differences. The findings demonstrated the benefit of training LD students to use metacognitive activities in reading comprehension.