Enhancing main idea comprehension for students with learning problems: Therole of a summarization strategy and self-monitoring instruction

This study investigated the effectiveness of a main idea strategy and self- monitoring instructional procedure for improving comprehension of textual m aterial in students with high-incidence (e.g., learning and behavioral) dis abilities. Thirty-three middle school students with disabilities were rando mly assigned to experimental and control groups. Students in the experiment al condition were trained to identify and generate main idea statements usi ng main idea strategy instruction and a self-monitoring procedure. Results indicated that the instructional procedures led to increased reading compre hension of students in the experimental group on the training measure, whic h was maintained over time. On near and far transfer measures, the experime ntal group statistically outperformed students in the control group on post test and delayed posttest items requiring selection responses. Students in the experimental group maintained strategy usage 6 weeks later on selection type responses on the near transfer measure but, not on the far transfer m easure. Implications for practice are discussed.