Meta-Analysis of Reading Comprehension Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities: Strategies and Implications.

This paper examines research studies, which focus on interventions commonly used with students who are learning disabled and identify effective methods that produce substantial benefits concerning reading comprehension. This paper synthesizes previous observation studies by conducting a meta-analysis of strategies used to improve the reading comprehension skills of students with learning disabilities. A systematic search of research conducted between 1985 and 2005 yielded 15 studies. The results of the synthesis revealed an effect size (ES) of 0.94 for visually dependent reading comprehension and 1.18 for auditory-language dependent strategies. Two important findings emerged from the synthesis: (a) auditory/language dependent strategies have a greater impact on the reading comprehension skills of students with learning disabilities compared to visually dependent strategies and (b) questioning strategies involving self-instruction and paragraph restatements along with text-structure-based strategies yield the most significant outcomes. Implications from the synthesis related to instructional strategies concerning the outcomes are discussed. Reading Comprehension Interventions 3 Meta-Analysis of Reading Comprehension Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities: Strategies and Implications Reading comprehension is a significant concern of students with learning disabilities. According to the Mastropieri, Scruggs, & Graetz (2003), reading is the major problem area for most students who are learning disabled. In fact, 90% of students with learning disabilities demonstrate significant difficulties learning to read (Lyon, 1995; Vaughn, Levy, Coleman, & Bos, 2002). Students with learning disabilities not only struggle with basic reading skills at a young age, e.g. phonemic and phonological awareness, but they are unable to analyze the context of the word, which leads to an inability to interpret or understand the meaning of the text. Reading comprehension has been defined as a process of constructing and extracting meaning from written texts, based on a complex coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985; Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997). Students with learning disabilities in reading comprehension have difficulty associating meaning with words (semantics), recognizing and recalling specific details, making inferences, drawing conclusions, and predicting outcomes, which is often attributed to a lack of metacognitive skills. According to Bender (2004), metacognition involves the overall planning of a cognitive task, self-instructions to complete the task, and performance self-monitoring, or checking to see that each phase of the task is completed appropriately and in the appropriate order. Proficient readers typically execute one or more metacognitive behaviors as they read; for example, as they read a passage, they use self-questioning techniques to monitor their understanding of the material or "look back" to locate important information and reread the section (Swanson & De La Paz, 1998). Many competent readers are not aware that these actions require metacognitive skills; rather, good readers engage in these strategic behaviors because they have proven, over time, to be useful (Swanson & De La Paz, 1998). The primary purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis on metacognitive instructional strategies used to improve the reading comprehension levels of students with learning disabilities. A synthesis of previous experimental studies focused on measures of reading comprehension and the effects of strategy instruction, specifically concerning visually dependent and auditory/language dependent strategies. Reading Comprehension Interventions 4 REVIEW OF READING COMPREHENSION RESEARCH Many researchers are constantly striving to identify the most effective strategies for improving the comprehension levels of students with learning disabilities. Although remedial efforts have typically focused on lower order reading skills, such as word attack and word recognition, both researchers and teachers are increasingly exploring the efficacy of methods for improving these students' reading comprehension (Johnson, Graham, & Harris, 1997). Numerous research studies have been conducted with intent to identify the best practices for improving the reading comprehension levels of students with learning disabilities, and much of the research has focused on strategy instruction because many students with learning disabilities lack metacognitive skills. Students with learning disabilities appear to be prime candidates for strategy instruction, as their strategic reading behavior is often inefficient and inflexible (Johnson, Graham, & Harris, 1997; Wong et al., 1986). When students with learning disabilities are taught how to utilize metacognitive strategies, and teachers facilitate the process, comprehension levels increase. Over the past two decades, many experiments have reaffirmed this theory. In a review of the literature, Mastropieri, Scruggs, and Thomas (1997) reveal best practices in promoting reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities. Their analysis of the review reported the strongest outcomes for facilitating reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities were in teacher-led questioning and self-questioning strategies, followed by text-enhancement strategies, and, finally, strategies involving basic skills and reinforcement. According to Mastropieri et al. (1997), specific interventions in reading comprehension make a difference make a difference in performance. Table 1 identifies the effect sizes and comprehension strategies. Swanson's (1999) findings from an extensive meta-analysis showed that a prototypical intervention study has an effect size of .72 for reading comprehension. Specifically, effect sizes for measures of reading comprehension were higher when derivatives of strategy instruction involving cognitive and direct instruction were implemented. Robust gains in reading comprehension were a direct result of the instructional components, which are identified in Table 2. The impact on the effect size was greater when the strategies were combined, especially concerning small group interactive instruction and strategy cueing. This research synthesis provides support that specific interventions in reading produce significant results. Reading Comprehension Interventions 5 Another study by Swanson and De La Paz (1998) formally evaluated strategies that were effective for improving the reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities. Specifically, the authors identified metacognitive strategies emphasizing the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model, which involves teaching students with learning disabilities how to comprehend text by becoming strategic readers. Table 3 provides descriptions of the strategies. Swanson and De La Paz (1998) provided the following essential components for effectively teaching comprehension strategies: First, start with simple materials to ensure initial success; then help students 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 monitor 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, e.g. prompting, because students 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 strategy teachers expect them to use. Generalizations from the research indicate that students with learning disabilities who are trained to use specific cognitive strategies such as self-questioning techniques using summarization or paragraph restatement strategies along with self-monitoring components significantly improve performance (Bakken, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 1997; Graves, 1986; Jenkins, Heliotis, Stein, & Haynes, 1987). Strategy instruction ameliorates the critical thinking skills of students with learning disabilities while increasing their active participation in the learning process. METHOD Data Collection The EBSCO Host and ERIC online data bases were scanned for studies, which address reading comprehension strategies for students with learning disabilities between 1985 and 2005. Specific criteria searched included a combination of the following terms: learning disabilities, reading comprehension, and Reading Comprehension Interventions 6 strategy instruction. The search produced approximately 350 records of abstracts, articles, and dissertations. The literature was narrowed down to specific studies, which utilized experimental design in which students anywhere from K-12 were given a treatment to augment their reading comprehension skills. Fifteen studies were selected for analyses based on the following criteria: 1. Students in K-12. Students must be in grades K-12. 2. Possess a learning disability or reading disability. Participants must be identified as learning disabled, which is indicative of a discrepancy between ability (IQ) and achievement, or they must be identified as having a reading disability, which is characterized by below average reading scores on a standardized comprehension test. 3. Reading comprehension measure. The study must include reading comprehension interventions, which focus on strategy instruction, either visual or auditory/language (independent variable) and the outcome must focus on measuring reading comprehension skills (dependent variable), which is demonstrated by responding to questions t