Using Interactive Teaching and Learning Strategies to Promote Text Comprehension and Content Learning for Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

The Interactive Teaching Project, described in this paper, was designed to test an instructional model designed to help students identified as learning disabled comprehend and learn content area concepts. Reported is a description of the theoretical rationale for the model, a description of the teaching and learning strategies used, and the effects of those strategies. The conclusions are based on data collected over three years in elementary bilingual social studies and junior high science classrooms. Overall, the interactive strategies (semantic feature analysis, semantic mapping, and semantic/syntactic feature analysis) were found to be more effective than instruction emphasizing definitions for students striving to learn content area concepts.