Evaluation of Multiple Strategy Instruction Not Employing Reciprocal Teaching

The strategies taught varied across these studies. Six out of the 12 taught summarizing or identifying main ideas. Three had question answering or generation. Monitoring was trained in two studies. Others used cooperative reading, recall, retelling, hypothesis testing, story structure, and psycho linguistic training (word, phrase, and sentence classification, morphological analysis).

Grades

The 12 studies involved readers from grades 2 through 11.  The grades were distributed: level 2 =1, level 3=2, level 4=6, level 5=1, level 6=2, and levels 7 through 11, 1 each. Thus, the modal grade is grade 4. Basic decoding skill is assumed in teaching reading strategies. 

Experimenter Tests

Seven studies report specific learning of the strategies taught; 2 studies report mixed results; and 2 studies report negative findings. The mixed results and negative findings occurred over grades 4 through 6. 

Standardized Tests

No data on Standardized Tests were reported.

Summary of Other Multiple Strategy Treatment Studies

One or more strategies taught in the context of an interaction facilitated comprehension as evidenced by memory, summarizing and identifying main ideas.

Overall Summary of Direct Instruction of Multiple Strategies

Taken, together, the evidence supports the use of combinations of reading strategies in natural learning situations. These findings build upon the empirical validation of strategies alone and attest to their use in the classroom context.