The Effect of Direct Instruction about Text Features on the Comprehension of Science Texts for Learning-disabled Middle School Students
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2015-07
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine if direct instruction teaching students to identify important information using cues from the text features in a science textbook has a direct effect on the comprehension of learning-disabled middle school students. The study consisted of a sample of ten seventh and eighth grade learning-disabled students who were directly instructed to identify text features and then locate important information. The participants were evaluated during two units of study on independent completion of two-sided notes after reading the textbook. The study involved the use of a pretest/posttest design to compare data from February of 2015 (before direct instruction was administered) to data from March of 2015 (after direct instruction was completed) in order to measure the difference in comprehension. The instrument used was cloze format two-sided notes created by the classroom teacher. The null hypothesis was accepted because the results were not statistically significant that the direct instruction about text features improved comprehension. Further research is necessary to better explore the effect of teaching text features to learning-disabled students to improve comprehension.