Promoting Thinking Skills of Students With Learning Disabilities: Effects on Recall and Comprehension of Expository Prose

Abstract

Twenty-nine students with learning disabilities read prose passages concerning facts about characteristics of vertebrate animals. Students in the control condition were told to take time after reading each sentence to try hard to remember the content. In the experimental condition, students were prompted to reason actively through information presented in each sentence. Results suggested that amount of recall of actual information did not differ by experimental condition; however, students trained in thinking skills produced significantly more correct explanations of that information than did students in the control condition. Nevertheless, student performance in both conditions was lower than found in previous investigations, in which students were directly coached and prompted to reason through school content. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.