The Effects of Three Prereading Activities on Learning Disabled Students' Reading Comprehension

Abstract

This study examined the effects of three prereading activities on learning disabled children's reading comprehension. Thirty-six children classified as learning disabled participated. The three prereading activities consisted of (a) a modified Directed Reading Activity, (b) a modified Concept Analysis Activity, and (c) a Worksheet Activity (control). To counterbalance for order of prereading activities and experimenter, a factorial/modified Latin-Square design was selected. Barrett's Taxonomy (1976) was used as a guide to develop the reading comprehension tests. Literal, inferential, evaluative, appreciative, and total test reading comprehension constituted the dependent measures. Repeated one-way analysis of variance and Newman-Keuls procedures were used to analyze the data.

The results, which replicated and substantiated a preliminary study (Sachs, 1981), indicate that evaluative reading comprehension is affected by both a modified Concept Analysis Activity and a modified Directed Reading Activity compared to the effect of a Worksheet Activity.

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