Verbal-Report Data on Reading Strategies

This study provides information about reading and summarizing strategies among expert readers, and tests the effect of manipulating processing-verbal report interval. Twenty undergraduates read and summarized an expository text, while being observed, on day one. Half of the subjects reported their thoughts and actions immediately afterward. The other 10 subjects reported two days later. Ten reading-summarizing strategies were reported more than once by undergraduates. Most summarization “rules” discussed in the literature appeared in the list. Clear processing-verbal report interval completeness effects were found, favoring the subjects who reported immediately following processing. Research implications are drawn.