ACCOMMODATING REMEDIAL READERS IN THE GENERAL EDUCATION SETTING: IS LISTENING-WHILE-READING SUFFICIENT TO IMPROVE FACTUAL AND INFERENTIAL COMPREHENSION?

Word reading accommodations are commonly applied in the general education setting in an attempt to improve student comprehension and learning of curriculum content. This study examined the effects of listening-while-reading (LWR) and silent reading (SR) using text-to-speech assistive technology on the comprehension of 25 middle-school remedial readers. Participants were provided three grade-level passages, each with 10 comprehension questions (5 factual, 5 inferential) after SR and also after LWR using the assistive technology. Conditions were counterbalanced across participants. No significant differences were found between LWR and SR total, factual, or inferential comprehension, even after controlling for participant reading ability. Discussion focuses on implications of these findings for reading comprehension theory and school psychologists, study limitations, and directions for future inquiry. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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