Improving text comprehension strategies in upper primary school children: a design experiment

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Literacy Education
• Instructional Design

Background:

• Primary education standards emphasize cognitive and metacognitive strategies for reading comprehension.
• A need exists for research-based instructional approaches to strategic reading comprehension.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, implement, and evaluate a practical learning environment for enhancing strategic reading in upper primary students.
• To train four text comprehension strategies and one metacognitive strategy using interactive techniques.

Main Methods:

• A design experiment involving 79 fifth-grade students in experimental classes and 149 in control classes.
• A pretest-post-test-retention design with quantitative data analysis using multilevel hierarchical linear regression models.
• Measures included Reading Strategy Test, Reading Comprehension Test, Reading Attitude Scale, Transfer Test, and interviews.

Main Results:

• Experimental group demonstrated superior adoption and application of reading strategies compared to the control group.
• The experimental group showed higher scores on the Reading Comprehension Test, though not statistically significant.
• Interviews and transfer tests confirmed enhanced strategy use and transfer in the experimental group.

Conclusions:

• A powerful learning environment can foster the use and transfer of strategic reading comprehension skills in regular classrooms.
• Intervention does not automatically guarantee improved performance on standardized reading comprehension tests.