A PEER EDITOR STRATEGY - GUIDING LEARNING-DISABLED STUDENTS IN RESPONSE AND REVISION

This study investigated the effectiveness of an approach to improving revising skills that integrated strategy instruction, peer response, a nd word processing. Seventh and eighth grade students with learning di sabilities were taught a systematic strategy for working in pairs to h elp each other revise their writing. The strategy was designed to guid e students in both the social and cognitive aspects of response and re vision. Cognitive support included a set of evaluation criteria, speci fic revision strategies, and an overall strategy for regulating the re vision process. Social interaction was guided by a predictable structu re for listening and responding to each others' writing. A multiple pr obe design across pairs was used to assess instruction. On the pretest s, students made few substantive revisions and did not improve the qua lity of their papers by revising them. Following instruction, all stud ents made more substantive revisions, the proportion of revisions rate d as improvements increased from 47% to 83%, and second drafts were ra ted as significantly better than first drafts. Furthermore, the overal l quality of final drafts increased substantially from pretests to pos ttests. The gains were maintained at one and two-month maintenance tes ting and generalized to handwritten compositions.