Accessing Scripts before Reading the Story

Research has demonstrated that prior knowledge effects reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects on silent reading comprehension of learning disabled readers' participation in activities designed to access scripts before reading. Prior to silently reading basal stories, 24 school-identified learning disabled children were exposed to (a) a plans-and-goals activity and (b) a conceptual-overview statement activity. A two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures on all factors was used to analyze the data. The plans-and-goals activity was found to effect the children's reading comprehension significantly. Thus, the results support the purported importance of acquiring scriptual knowledge before reading.