The Effects of Story Mapping Instruction on the Reading Comprehension of Students with Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

A repeated measures multiple baseline across subjects design was used to evaluate the effects of story mapping instruction on the reading comprehension of four upper-elementary school students with behavioral disorders. Individually administered story mapping instruction focused on teaching students to identify the characters, setting, problems, events, and outcomes inherent in narrative text. Over all, story mapping instruction improved students' abilities to comprehend narrative text. Performance on comprehension questions related to story settings, problems, and major events showed the greatest improvement, although proficiency in identifying story settings for all students and problems for two of the four was not demonstrated. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Narrative Abilities

“…For example, Nathanson et al (2007) trained children with learning disabilities (mean age 10 years 4 months) on a narrative retrieval strategy designed to improve the accuracy of recall of past events. Similar findings have been observed with elementary school children with behavior disorders (Babyak et al, 2000), as well as middle and high school children with learning disabilities (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999;Gurney, Gersten, Dimino, & Carnine, 1990). Comparatively, children in the control group received intervention related to motivating instructions (e.g., Try your best) when recounting information from the lesson.…”

“…The largest body of work in the area of narrative intervention has focused on explicit teaching of story grammar structure, with evidence of improved narrative performance in both preschool-aged and schoolaged children with and without language and learning difficulties (Babyak, Koorland, & Mathes, 2000;Hayward & Schneider, 2000;Nathanson, Crank, Saywitz, & Ruegg, 2007). Hayward and Schneider (2000) taught story grammar to preschool-aged children with LI over 12 sessions of approximately 20 min each, with tasks targeting the use of cue cards to identify story grammar components, identifying missing story parts, as well as organizing scrambled stories.…”

Teacher strategies for effective intervention with students presenting social, emotional and behavioural difficulties: an international review

“…• Previewing reading material gave an effect size of 1.93 on accuracy of scores (n = 3) (Rose 1984) • Sequential prompting in a secondary-school setting resulted in an effect size of 2.04 for written sentence production (n = 3) (Schloss, Harriman, and Pfeifer 1985) • A programme designed to teach test-taking skills resulted in an effect size of 1.03 (n = 34) (Scruggs and Marsing 1987) • Personalised instruction increased the number of spelling tests passed in children between 10 and 12 years old, with a mean effect size of 0.92 for the class (n = 10) (McLaughlin 1991) • A structured instructional system, which involved teaching school survival skills to children with a mean age of 12.9 years, increased task completion with an effect size of 0.38 (n = 14) (Foley and Epstein 1993) • Incorporating the students' interest in lesson content in curriculum delivered to children aged between 5 and 11 years increased their productivity on words written and colours identified with an effect size of 1.47 (n = 4) (Clarke et al 1995) • A study of the effects of story mapping on students aged 10 and 11 years in increasing reading comprehension of text produced an effect size of 2.68 (n = 4) (Babyak, Koorland, and Mathes 2000) • Individual curricular modifications designed to promote reading skills increased academic productivity as measured by the number of words read, with a mean effect size of 1.62 (n = 2) (Kern et al 2001). …”

Teacher-Mediated Interventions for Children with EBD and Their Academic Outcomes

“…Examples of teacher-mediated interventions include token economies (Musser, Bray, & Kehle, 2001), contingency contracting (Murphy, 1988), adjusting task difficulty (Center, Deitz, & Kaufman, 1982), structured instructional system (Foley & Epstein, 1993), and story mapping (Babyak, Koorland, & Mathes, 2000). A teacher-mediated intervention is an intervention in which the teacher (or administrator of the intervention other than the student him/ herself) takes responsibility for treatment, manipulating antecedents and/or consequences in order to improve the academic performance of the student.…”