Summary Tables   The following links take you to summary tables for particular topics of interest. Bold topics, from Comprehension to Meta-analyses, have tables farther down this page. Comprehension has the added feature of separate subtopic pages, such as Skills Instruction. Each subtopic link (both in this list and in the 4th column) opens a separate page.

Reviewers' Ratings of Research   As explained in the Reading Summary page, selection of research for this database has emphasized studies meeting the definition of quality research as outlined in the federal No Child Lift Behind legislation. Remember that ratings in column 2 apply to the research design, not to the quality of the intervention studied or how powerful the method, strategy, or approach is in influencing overall student achievement. Design rating levels, as illustrated by the Gold Standard pyramid, are further explained on the Definitions page. The tables below are arranged by column 2, Design Rating, with highest ratings (or N/A) listed first.

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Graphic Organizer

Grade: 5

Keywords:
explicit instruction, implicit instruction, social studies

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension 
 – Think Aloud
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 4

Keywords:
student monitoring

Study:
Dole, Valencia, Greer, & Wardrop.

Effects of two types of prereading instruction on the comprehension of narrative and expository text.

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reading_4-6_4

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Activating Background Knowledge
 – Discussion

Grades: 5

Keywords:
teacher-directed; narrative; expository

Study:
Judy, Alexander, Kulikowich, & Wilson.

Effects of two instructional approaches and peer tutoring on gifted and nongifted sixth-grade students; analogy performance.

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reading_4-6_31

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
• Vocabulary 

Grades: 6

Keywords:
peer tutoring; gifted students; analogies

Study:
Armbruster, Anderson, & Meyer.

Improving content-area reading using instructional graphics.

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reading_4-6_36

Grades: - 4, 5

Keywords:
graphic; social studies;

Strategy:  Map Construction for organizing ideas as a framework for studying.
Subjects: 99 sixth graders from a middle school in Minneapolis suburb
Results: The map construction group recalled significantly more information than the question-answering group. There was no difference indicated in the transfer test. In the recall of main ideas, map construction group recalled significantly more main ideas than the other three groups.

Study:
Wigfield, A., Guthrie, J.T., Tonks, S., & Perencevich, K.C.

Children’s motivation for reading: Domain specificity and instructional influences.

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reading_3-5_140

Strategy:   1) Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) 2) Strategy Instruction (SI)
Subjects: CORI was implemented in 2 schools with all 150 3 rd graders in eight classrooms. SI was implemented in 2 schools with all 200 3 rd graders in 11 classrooms.
Results: Comparison of the effect of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) on reading self-efficacy. Effect Size = .25

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 3-5

Keywords:
concept instruction, motivation, science, inquiry

Study:
Baumann.

The effectiveness of a direct instruction paradigm for teaching main idea comprehension.

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reading_4-6_56

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6

Keywords:
main idea; direct instruction; explicit and implicit

Study:
DeLaPaz & Graham.

Explicitly teaching strategies, skills, and knowledge: Writing instruction in middle school classrooms.

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reading_7-8_103

Strategy:  SRSD- Self-Regulated Strategy Development Model
Subjects: 58 7-8 graders , 2 suburban schools in SE. Schools' demographics: 500 students, 94% White, under 1% ESL, reduced-fee lunch - 18% and 12% at the 2 schools.
Results:

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
 – Misc (writing)

Grades: 6-8
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
writing; explicit teaching

Study:
Dole, Brown, & Trathen.

The effects of strategy instruction on the comprehension performance of at-risk students.

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reading_4-6_5

Grades: 5, 6
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
narrative text; at-risk students: story content

Study:
Hidi & Baird.

Strategies for increasing text-based interest and students' recall of expository texts.

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reading_4-6_8

Strategy:  Interest-invoking text strategies: 1) Attributes that contribute to sentence interest, 2) Insertion of information that elaborates on the central idea, 3) Resolution interest
Subjects: 110 4th-graders and 6th-graders in upper-middle class suburban school regular classes
Results: Significant effects for recall 4th graders .23 and .17, 6th graders .33 and .26

Grades: 4, 6

Keywords:
interest; recall; expository text

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
 – Text Structure 
 – Graphic Organizers

Grades: 5, 6

Keywords:
metacognition; teacher modeling; comprehension process

Study:
Lysynchuk, Pressley, & Vye.

Reciprocal teaching improves standardized reading comprehension performance in poor comprehenders.

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reading_4-6_26

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
reciprocal teaching; questioning: summarizing; predicting

Study:
Gambrell & Bales.

Mental imagery and the comprehension-monitoring performance of fourth-and fifth-grade poor readers.

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reading_4-6_28

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 4, 5
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
mental imagery; comprehension-monitoring

Study:
Carnine & Kinder.

Teaching low-performing students to apply generative & schema strategies to narrative and expository materials

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reading_4-6_29

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
 – Activating Background Knowledge

Grades: 4, 5, 6
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
imagery; summarizing; student questions; narrative text; expository text

Study:
Jenkins, Heliotis, Stein, & Haynes.

Improving reading comprehension by using paragraph restatements.

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reading_4-6_30

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
 – Misc (writing)

Grades: 3 - 6

Keywords:
narrative text; writing; restatements; summarizing

Study:
Rosenshine, Meister, & Chapman.

Teaching students to generate questions: A review of the intervention studies.

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reading_4-6_32

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Questioning Strategies

Grades: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Keywords:
questioning; students' questions; interventions

Study:
Rosenshine & Meister.

Reciprocal teaching: A review of the research.

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reading_4-6_34

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: Diverse Learners

Keywords:
reciprocal teaching; summarizing; questioning; predicting

Study:
Collins.

Reading instruction that increases thinking abilities.

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reading_4-6_38

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6, 8, 9

Keywords:
reasoning; thinking

Strategy: QAR - Question Answer Relationship
Subjects: 217 5th and 8th grade students from 4 comparable suburban schools in Salt Lake City
Results: Training does enhance children's performance on comprehension tasks, and is particularly effective with children of average and low-reading abilitiy levels, particularly with regard to implicit question types.

Study:
Taylor, Pearson, Peterson, & Rodriguez.

Reading growth in high poverty classrooms: The influence of
teacher practices that encourage cognitive engagement in literacy learning.

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reading_4-6_82

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Questioning Strategies
 – Discussion

Grades: K-5
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
teacher effectiveness; student engagement

Study:
Lipson, Mosenthal, Daniels, & Woodside-Jiron.

Process writing in the classrooms of eleven fifth-grade teachers with different orientations to teaching and learning.

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reading_4-6_85

Grades: 5

Keywords:
writing; conferencing; peer conferencing;

Study:
Symons, S., MacLatchy-Gauget, H., Stone, T.D., & Reynolds, P.L.

Strategy instruction for elementary students searching informational test.

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reading_3-5_110

Strategy:  Strategic reading and monitoring while reading informational text
Subjects: Studies 1 to 3 included 180, 57, and 92 rural elementary students respectively. None experienced significant academic difficulties according to their teachers
Results: Strategy plus Monitoring compared to control on accuracy

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction
 – Text Structure

Grades: 3-5

Keywords: self-monitoring, informational text; answering questions; locating information; factual text; 3rd, 4th, 5th graders

Study:
Carr, Dewitz, & Patberg.

The effect of inference training on children's comprehension of expository text.

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reading_4-6_41

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction 

Grades: 6

Keywords:
structured overview; background knowledge; cloze; self-monitoring

Study:
Reutzel.

Investigating a synthesized comprehension instructional strategy: The cloze story map

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reading_4-6_12

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Questioning Strategies
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6

Keywords:
questioning; students' questions

Study:
Pelow & McVey Colvin.

PQ4R as it affects comprehension of social studies reading material.

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reading_4-6_24

Strategy:  Subject groups used the same text and workbook in daily 45 min. morning sessions.
Control group was given pages to be read, questions from the teacher, pages in the workbook, students’ oral and written reports. Experimental group was given the same as control with added teacher demonstration of each step of PQ4R. Students started forming questions prior to reading.
Subjects: 2 groups of 15 sixth-grade students from an independent co-educational school
Results: PQ4R Effect Size = .71

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6

Keywords:
study skills; social studies

Study:
Peters & Levin.

Effects of a mnemonic imagery strategy on good and poor readers' prose recall.

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reading_4-6_25

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6-8
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
imagery; mnemonics; recall

Study:
Rinehart, Stahl, & Erickson. Some effects of summarization training on reading and studying.

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reading_4-6_27

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 6

Keywords:
summarizing; study skills; recall

Strategy: Mnemonic-based and semantic-based (contextual analysis and semantic mapping) vocabulary strategies
Subjects: 71 high-achieving, semi-rural 4th-graders and 55 low-achieving, racially mixed university community 4th & 5th-graders
Results: The key word method was found to be superior in impacting definition recall for both ability levels. The semantic strategies produced positive results, just not as high as the mnemonic strategy.

Study:
Schunk & Rice.

Strategy fading and progress feedback: Effects on self-efficacy and comprehension among students receiving remedial reading services.

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reading_4-6_53

Strategy:  Comprehension strategy fading and progress feedback and (use of) strategy value feedback
Subjects: 44 fifth graders receiving remedial reading-comprehension instruction Chapter I reading program predominately lower-middle class, 25% ELL
Results: Self-efficacy yielded significant treatment effect F(3, 40) - 16.82, p<.001
Comprehension skills yielded significant treatment effect F(3, 40)= 14.97, p<.001
Self-reported strategy use was significant F(3, 40) = 16.81, p<.01

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 5
Diverse Learners

Keywords: comprehension strategies, direct instruction, explicit instruction

Study:
Holmes.

The effect of states of prior knowledge on question answering.

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reading_4-6_87

Strategy:  No specific strategy/model, program, material, or intervention was used. Study looked at the effects prior knowledge of good and poor readers had on their ability to answer questions.
Subjects: 56 5th graders varying in reading ability (CAT score) and level of prior knowledge (# of accurate facts per 2 selected topics).
Results: The study found that poor readers did not seem to use a large store of background knowledge to the same advantage as the good readers. Poor readers with high background information ere less successful in inferencing, modifying correct information and learning new information.

Grades: 5
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
questioning; expository text

Study:
Graves.

Effects of direct instruction and metacomprehension training on finding main ideas

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reading_4-6_146

Strategy: Direct Instruction and Metacomprehension Training on finding main ideas
Subjects: 24 boys and 8 girls in the fifth through eighth grades, identified as learning disabled, scored at least 2 years below grade level on a standardized reading test, and had IQs within the normal range
Results: Effect Size -

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grades: 5-8
Diverse Learners

Keywords:
direct instruction; main idea; metacomprehension

Study:
Fuchs & Fuchs.

Peer-assisted learning strategies: An evidence-based practice to promote reading achievement

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reading_4-6_156

Strategy: Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS)
Subjects: 118 second through 6 th graders, 58 were students with LD, 27 were low performers never referred to special education and 33 were average achievers.
Results: With respect to treatment effects on number of words read correctly, students who participated in the four experimental tutoring activities made significantly greater growth than those in the contrast group: ES = .29 to .41
Only students who participated in reciprocal role conditions and complex reading activities improved more than contrast students: average ES = .65.

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Cooperative Strategies

Grades: 1-6

Keywords: summarizing, PALS

Study:
Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus.

Retelling and the reading comprehension of proficient and less-proficient readers. 

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reading_4-6_160

Strategy: Retelling
Subjects: 48 fourth graders (24 proficient readers, 24 less-proficient readers) from four schools in Maryland
Effect: Results indicate that proficient and less-proficient readers answered significantly more cued recall questions. Retellings improved in quantity and quality for both groups.

Reading Topics:
• Comprehension
 – Strategy Instruction

Grade: 4

Keywords:
retelling, comprehension, narrative text