Improving Reading Comprehension by Using Paragraph Restatements

Thirty-two elementary learning disabled students were randomly assigned either to a condition in which they were trained to use a comprehension monitoring strategy or to a control condition. In the strategy condition, students were instructed to write brief restatements of the important ideas of paragraphs as they read. Following training, all students read and completed comprehension measures for narrative passages under conditions which constituted (a) a test of training, (b) a near transfer test, and (c) a remote transfer test. In all instances the strategy-trained students exhibited better comprehension than did the control students.