Promoting strategy generalization through self-instructional training in students with reading disabilities

Twenty Grade 5 and 6 students with reading disabilities, 20 average readers in Grade 3, and 20 average readers in Grades 5 and 6 were taught to use a self-questioning strategy for the identification of main ideas. They were randomly assigned to either a standard instruction or a generalization induction condition. In the latter, informed training and self-instructional training techniques were employed to promote generalization of strategy use. Subjects were posttested under both a cued and an uncued condition in their homerooms. Results indicated that the self-instructional training succeeded in facilitating the identification of main ideas among students with reading disabilities and in helping them to maintain their improved performance when they were no longer prompted to use the strategy in a transfer setting.