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Reading Comprehension Strategy Makes Student Scream (Part 2)

I promised in my last blog to give you the results of my friend’s study. Before I share his comments and results I want to share what has happened with a few of my students. A couple of my students made failing grades on two of my quizzes. I asked them to prepare for the next exam by reading the chapter once, but to stop after each paragraph and explain it out loud. The latest brain research indicates that most people can remember 90% of what they teach or explain compared to 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they both hear and see. Both of my students tried this strategy and they made As on the next quiz. Another student improved from a D average on previous quizzes to a B after using this technique.

My friend is Lynn Skaggs, PhD and professor of Psychology at Central Texas College. Here are his results in his own words:

The results were really good. I had 25 students participate and were pretty evenly distributed among the three groups: 1 – read once summarizing each paragraph out loud before going to the next paragraph; 2- read the chapter 3 times; 3 – do both.

I compared their grade with the average on their previous two tests.

Group 1 – grade increased 23%
Group 2 – grade increased 21%
Group 3 – grade increased 24%

There is really no significant difference in performance among the groups. The increase is the equivalent of a student averaging 75 increasing to a 92.

A confound was that almost all of Group 3 had good grades on their previous two tests so their ability to improve was very limited. So, I looked at only students who had D or F averages:

Group 1 – increase 28%
Group 2 – increase 28%

This is the equivalent of a student with a 60 average increasing to 77 – from failing to passing.

Group 3 – There was only one student with D or F in this group, but his grade increased 57%!

Since there is really no difference between the study techniques, it probably comes down to a student finally studying period and using almost any technique that requires lots of involvement with the text.

The main technique error is in barely studying the text and focusing on notes taken from the text instead. That seems to be the recipe for failure.

Read the text, read the text, read the text is the recipe for success. However, the most important ingredient for success is the student deciding to study and be successful -deciding to stop texting friends and to work at their studies!

Best regards,
Raymond Gerson

Reading Comprehension Strategy Makes Student Scream

Why did a student in a college Psychology course let out a loud scream of delight, leap out of her chair, run down the aisle and then give her professor a big hug? Read on for the rest of the story.

A friend of mine is a Professor of Psychology who is also helping his students to improve their reading comprehension. He gives tough exams and many of his students fail the tests unless they understand the concepts and principles.

Last semester he started advising a few students who were failing to read each chapter three times. He also advised these students to stop after reading each paragraph and explain it out loud to themselves. Instructions were not to go to the next paragraph until they could explain the meaning of the preceding one. This strategy was being offered to the students to help them become active readers in which they thoroughly engaged with the material for understanding and then through repetition stored the information in their long term memories.

Several students who used this strategy went from making “Fs” to making “As.” One of the students was so excited when she received her grade of “A” that she hollered out loud, bolted from her seat, ran down the aisle toward her professor and then gave him a big hug. Prior to this experience she was failing all of her college courses in spite of reading the chapters in her textbooks.

Now my friend has decided to conduct an experiment and do some action research to find out which of three different strategies will improve reading comprehension and test scores the most.

One group of students plans to read the chapters once before the next test, but will also pause after each paragraph and explain it out loud. They are not to go to the next paragraph until they understand the meaning of the preceding paragraph. Group 2 will read the chapters three times, but will not pause and explain the paragraphs. Group 3 will read each chapter three times and will also explain each paragraph three times.

Which of these three strategies will work best and in what order? Which group will make the highest scores? Which one will prove to be the most effective reading comprehension strategy? I will find out and will share the information with you in my next blog.

Copyright 2010. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson