Multipass: A Learning Strategy for Improving Reading Comprehension

Multipass, a complex learning strategy designed to enable students to gain information from textbook chapters, was taught to eight learning disabled adolescents. The instructional procedures involved a 10-step process including (a) description of the steps of the strategy, (b) modeling of the strategy, and (c) student practice to criterion in both ability-level and grade-level materials. A multiple-baseline design across three substrategies was replicated eight times. Results showed that students learned the Multipass strategy following the institution of training and were able to generalize their use of the strategy to grade-level textbooks. Furthermore, students' grades on tests covering the textbook material improved after they learned the strategy. These results show that a specific instructional methodology can be effectively used to teach a complex learning strategy to learning disabled adolescents.