Evaluation

The NRP reviewed 20 studies that experimentally examined comprehension monitoring instruction.

Grade Level.

The distribution of grade levels studied in research on comprehension monitoring ranged from grades 2 to 6: grade level 2, n=3; level 3, n=6; level 4, n=8; level 5, n= 5; level 6, n=6. Hence, the mode was at grade 4.

Texts. 

Comprehension monitoring has been studied mainly with expository texts that are used in the elementary grades, particularly Social Studies and Science texts. These present problems with novel concepts and vocabulary as well as novel facts and relationships.

Experimenter Tests.

Awareness during reading. The vast majority of studies on comprehension monitoring investigated whether children could learn to become aware of their comprehension difficulties and verbally report them to the teacher. In terms of success, 14 out of 14 studies (100%) measured and obtained more success in awareness of comprehension during reading for the treatment as compared to the control groups.  This success occurs at about the same rate across grades 2-6.

Detection of inconsistencies in text. Asking the reader to detect inconsistencies in the text is one of the primary means that researchers have used to evaluate success of training and its transfer. While this is a difficult thing to do, even for adults, five studies report significant improvement in error detection for comprehension monitoring conditions.

Other experimenter measures. Recall, question answering, and course achievement gains were used once, twice, and once, respectively. The recall and question answering effects were null for 2nd graders, suggesting that this method does not generalize, at least for the youngest readers.  However, one study that measured improvement in Science course achievement, found that 2nd graders benefited from the training.

Standard Comprehension Tests.

Seven studies used Standardized Comprehension Tests to assess general transfer effects of learning comprehension monitoring. Of these, 5 reported significant effects (grades 3 through 6) and 2 were not significant (grades 3 and 4).

Summary Evaluation of Comprehension Monitoring

Children in grades 2 through 6 can be taught to monitor their comprehension and become aware of when and where they are having difficulty and learn procedures to assist them in overcoming the problem. There is evidence that this training has specific and general transfer benefits. The main transfer is to improved detection of text inconsistencies and memory for the text and on standardized reading comprehension test performance.