Rethinking strategy instruction: direct reading strategy instruction versus computer‐based guided practice

Abstract

There are many established reading strategy training programmes, which explicitly teach strategic and meta-cognitive knowledge to improve reading comprehension. Although instruction in strategy knowledge leads to improvements in meta-cognitive skills, the effects do not always transfer to reading comprehension. Therefore, to investigate preconditions for knowledge transfer, two different strategy training programmes were implemented in nine classes of Grade 6 students (N ϭ 148) over the course of one school year. One programme involved teacher-directed instruction of declarative meta-cognitive knowledge (Reading Detectives; Rühl & Souvignier, 2006). The other aimed at improving executive meta-cognition by guided practice: students worked with a computer program based on latent semantic analysis (LSA) (conText) and received immediate feedback on written summaries. Although both groups improved their strategy knowledge to the same extent, the conText group showed a greater improvement in reading comprehension. These fi ndings suggest that guided practice, which is characterised by intensive practice and individualised corrective feedback, is superior to explicitly teaching strategy knowledge.

Incidental vocabulary acquisition from stories: Second and fourth graders learn more from listening than reading

“…To monitor fidelity of the free story telling, the closeness of the individual free story tellings to the original written stories was estimated using latent semantic analysis. This programme was developed to provide student feedback while summarizing passages to improve reading comprehension (Lenhard, Baier, Endlich, Schneider, & Hoffmann, 2011). The latent semantic analysis software returns a coefficient (between zero and 1) that approximates a correlation coefficient and indicates semantic similarity, with a high coefficient indicating greater semantic overlap.…”

Supporting secondary school students' reading comprehension in computer environments: A systematic review

“…In our review sample, all studies used a cognitive performance measure to test students' reading intervention outcomes, only one study (Lenhard et al, 2011) also measured metacognitive performance, and another study (Gegner et al, 2009) reported motivational outcomes.…”

“…In the study by Lenhard et al (2011), students who worked with conText received support during and after the reading task, whereas students who worked with In the study by why an answer was correct or incorrect.…”

“…In total, three of the reviewed articles provided support with cognitive content, one article focused on metacognitive content, and one article combined cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational content in the digital support.The studies byClay et al (2009) andFry andGosky (2007) provided support to the students in the form of a digital dictionary.Because a dictionary is solely aimed at knowledge of word definitions and supports students' vocabulary, we considered this cognitive support, providing information about the contents rather than the reading practice Lenhard et al (2011). In total, three of the reviewed articles provided support with cognitive content, one article focused on metacognitive content, and one article combined cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational content in the digital support.The studies byClay et al (2009) andFry andGosky (2007) provided support to the students in the form of a digital dictionary.Because a dictionary is solely aimed at knowledge of word definitions and supports students' vocabulary, we considered this cognitive support, providing information about the contents rather than the reading practice Lenhard et al (2011).…”

“…Clay et al (2009) designed the support in the form of two vocabulary tools,which were optional (i.e., process) for participants to extend their vocabulary (i.e., products) Lenhard et al (2011). Llorens et al (2016) focused on learning products.…”