Increasing Retention of Main Ideas through Questioning Strategies

Hammill Institute on Disabilities

Increasing Retention of Main Ideas through Questioning StrategiesAuthor(s): Bernice Y. L. WongSource: Learning Disability Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring, 1979), pp. 42-47Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1510643 .

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INCREASING RETENTION OF MAIN IDEAS THROUGH QUESTIONING STRATEGIES

Bernice Y. L. Wong

This study investigated the effectiveness of questions in increasing learning disabled and normally achieving children's retention of main ideas of a story. The results indicate that questions increase the retention of main ideas in learning disabled children. However, the results indicate that questions have little effect on the retention of main ideas in normally achieving children. The findings are interpreted in terms of cognitively activating the learning disabled children by the questions; the normally achieving children were seen spontaneously and actively to process what they read. The results are interpreted to support Torgesen's conceptualization of the learning disabled child as an inactive learner. - D.D.D.

Decoding problems in learning disabled children have always been the remedial focus among educators of such children (Bateman, 1976). However, comprehension problems in learning disabled children, are not to be ig- nored (Golinkoff, 1976). Recent research on comprehension indicates that learning disabled children do not recall as many main ideas of

story or prose materials as normally achieving children. Specifically, Smiley, Oaken, Wor- then, Campione and Brown (1977) found that compared to adequate readers, learning disabled readers did not recall as many idea units judged to be most thematically important. Moreover, learning disabled readers were found to be less sensitive to the degrees (gradation) of rated thematic importance among the idea units in the story materials they read. Hansen (1978) found that in story retells, learning disabled children included fewer propositions than average readers regardless of the difficulty of the story materials. Additional analyses showed that the story retells of learning disabled children included fewer superordinate propositions (i.e., main ideas) than average readers. The two groups, however, did not differ in the

number of subordinate propositions recalled (i.e., supporting details). In a related study, Meyer, Brandt, and Bluth (1978) found that poor readers recalled substantially fewer superordinate ideas than good readers.

It appears then that learning disabled children do not extract as much essential information from their reading as do normally achieving children. Such research findings provide little comfort to educators of learning disabled students. It behoves us, therefore, to address the question of how we could improve the learning disabled child's retention of main ideas from materials read.

The purpose of our study was to investi- gate whether or not the use of questions would improve the learning disabled child's retention of main ideas from a given story. We subscribe to Torgesen's (1977a) conceptual framework of the learning disabled child as an inactive learner. Torgesen's basic tenet is that learning disabled children do not realize

BERNICE Y.L. WONG, Ed.D., is Assistant Professor, Education Faculty, Simon Fraser University, B.C., Canada.

42 Learning Disability Quarterly



INCREASING RETENTION

W N G

that they should actively participate in their own learning, and that they should think of and use task-appropriate strategies to aid their learning. Moreover, they lack goal-directed motivation. Such attributes render learning disabled children inactive learners (Torgesen, 1977a). Several empirical studies support Torgesen's conceptualization of learning disabilities. These include Torgesen (1977b), Wong, Wong, and Foth (1977), Wong (1978), Hallahan, Gajar, Cohen, and Tarver (1978). In a recent study using recall of sentences, Wong (1979) found that learning disabled children processed implied information inadequately. However, in a subsequent study using a questions/prompts procedure, Wong was able to induce adequate comprehension and retention of implied information in different comparable groups of learning disabled children. These results were interpreted to provide additional support of Torgesen's conceptualization of the learning disabled child as an inactive learner.

The use of questions to improve comprehension in normally achieving students has been well documented (Anderson & Biddle, 1975). Moreover, the use of questions has been found to increase reading comprehension in mentally retarded students (Knapczyk & Livingston, 1974; Rinke, 1975; Twardosz & Baer, 1973) and in junior high learning disabled students (Hori, 1977). Utilizing Manzo's (1969) Request Procedure to induce questioning behavior in learning disabled adolescents, Hori (1977) found the Request Procedure to increase the learning disabled students' comprehension as well as their

questioning behavior. Meichenbaum and Asarnow (1978) also found that questions have been successful in increasing com-

prehension in poor readers. Together with the results from Wong's (1979) study, an em-

pirically based prediction appears warranted, that the use of questions enhances comprehension in learning disabled children. Specifically, it was predicted that the use of questions would increase the recall of the most thematically important idea units in the learning disabled children in this study. Phrased within Torgesen's (1977a) conceptual framework, our prediction becomes this: Questions will successfully activate the

cognitively inactive learning disabled child, resulting in his/her increased comprehension of materials read.

METHOD Subjects

A total of 60 fifth graders participated in the study. Originally, we had intended to involve an additional group of 60 seventh graders. However, in a pilot study of 40 children (10 fifth-grade learning disabled children matched with 10 normally achieving fifth graders; 10 seventh-grade learning disabled children matched with 10 normally achieving seventh graders), we found ceiling effects in the learning disabled seventh graders and their normally achieving peers. Apparently the story materials were too easy for them. Seventh graders were consequently excluded from the study. Because the selected story materials had been normed to have a read-

ability around grade five, we decided against including third graders for fear of a performance depression effect (floor effect) in the

learning disabled third graders. Considering that the latter would be reading at grade one to, at most, a grade two level, we could not discount the possibility of a performance depression effect confounding our results. Hence we restricted our subject pool to fifth

graders. Half of the 60 subjects were learning dis-

abled while the remaining were normally achieving students. The criteria for classifying a learning disabled child were as follows: (1) an academic deficit in reading of one year or more below grade level; (2) adequate in-

telligence as measured on the Performance Scale of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R, 1976); (3) no physical, sensory or emotional disorders. The learning disabled subjects in this study had all

previously been identified by school district

personnel through the requisite psychological and educational assessments. The students were attending daily remedial classes for about an hour in Learning Assistance Centers in their schools.

The learning disabled children were randomly recruited from two large elementary schools in a suburban school district in Van- couver, B.C., Canada. The two schools were located in the same middle-class, socio-

Volume 2, Spring 1979 43



economic area. The normally achieving children were randomly selected from the same classrooms as the learning disabled children, matching the latter in sex and age to within three months. These students were randomly chosen from those whose scholastic performance showed consistently average performance. Within each group of learning disabled and normally achieving children, the ratio of boys and girls was approximately equal. The mean reading levels on the reading section of the Metropolitan Achieve- ment Test (MAT) for the learning disabled children was 3.53 and 5.40 for the normally achieving children.

Materials The story chosen was a simple Japanese

folktale entitled "The Dragon's Tears". Its readability score on the Dale-Chall formula is 5.2287. It contains 390 words.

The story was originally used by Brown and Smiley (1977). These investigators broke the story into pausal units which were rated for structural or thematic importance by in- dependent groups of college students. As a result of this procedure, the story consisted of 59 pausal units. Of these, 14 were rated thematically most important (i.e., 4-point ratings), 16 received 3-point ratings, 16 2-point ratings, and 13 were assigned 1-point ratings.' The procedure for breaking the story into pausal units and subsequently rating the thematic importance of the units was reported in Brown and Smiley (1977).

In the original story used by Brown and Smiley (1977), each pausal unit was printed on a separate line. For the purposes of our experiment, we grouped the units into seven paragraphs. In each paragraph, a pausal unit rated to be thematically most important (i.e., 4-point ratings) was randomly chosen as a base on which to formulate a question. Altogether then, there were seven questions.

Procedure The children were tested in groups of

three. They were told that the experimenter wanted to find out if children of their age would like the story. They were then each given a copy of the story printed clearly on sheets of paper measuring 8 by 11" each. The experimenter read the story once to the

children with a natural pace and pitch, while they followed the printed story visually.

For the children in the Questions Condi- tion, the experimenter read each question which preceded its target paragraph before reading the paragraph itself. The same questions were printed on the copies of the story given to the children in this treatment condition. The copies of the story given to the children in the No-Questions Condition contained no questions.

Immediately after the experimenter fin- ished reading the story, the children were asked to recall as much of the story as possible by writing it down. They were told not to worry about spelling errors. They were also told that verbatim recall was not mandatory.

Scoring Each child's recall was analyzed to see

how many units were recalled in each of the four categories of rated thematic importance. The individual's subtotal of units recalled in each of the four categories of rated thematic importance constituted data for statistical analyses.

RESULTS The data were subjected to a 2 (Groups)

x 2 (Questions) x 4 (Importance Level of the idea units in the story) analysis of variance with repeated measures on the last variable.

The results indicated a significant main effect of Groups [F(1,56) = 18.45, p < .001]. Normally achieving children recalled significantly more idea units in the story than learning disabled children. There was no significant main effect of Questions [F(1,56) <1, N.S.]. However, the Groups x Questions interaction was significant [F(1,56) = 11.49, p < .01]. Tests of simple main effects indicated that normally achieving and learning disabled children did not differ in the recall of idea units when they were given questions preceding target paragraphs [F(1,56) =

1.27, p > .05]. However, in the No- Questions Condition, normally achieving children recalled significantly more idea units than did learning disabled children [F(1,56) = 18.36, p < .001]. It appears then that the use of questions substantially facilitated learning disabled children's recall of idea units. Given such treatment, these students produced a performance comparable to that of normally




achieving children. However, it is pertinent to note that the use of questions did not affect the performance of normally achieving children. They seem spontaneously to gen- erate processing strategies to produce effec- tive comprehension and recall of the gist of the story. This capacity of the normally achieving children explains the absence of a significant main effect of Questions.

The results also indicated a significant main effect of Importance Level of the idea units in the story [F(3,168) = 113.78, p < .0001]. Post hoc comparisons indicated that the children recalled significantly more idea units rated to be very high in thematic importance, i.e., those with four- and three-point ratings on a 4-point scale of thematic importance (Tukey HSD test, p < .05). Additionally, the Questions x Importance Level interaction was significant [F(3,168) = 4.44, p < .01]. Under the Questions Condition, the children recalled significantly more idea units with 4-point ratings than children in the No- Questions Condition [F(3,168) = 3.91, p < .05]. No reliable differences were obtained between the children in the two treatments regarding the recall of idea units with 3-point, 2-point or 1-point ratings in thematic impor- tances [All F's (3,168) < 2.19, p > .05].

Lastly, the three-way interaction: Groups X Questions x Importance Level was signifi-

cant [F(3,168) = 4.31, p < .01]. Tests of simple main effects indicated that for normally achieving children, the use of questions had little impact regarding enhancement of their recall of thematically important idea units [All F's (3,168) < 1, N.S.]. In striking contrast, the use of questions substantially increased disabled children's recall of idea units rated to be most thematically important, i.e., those with 4-point ratings [F(3,168) = 9.90, p < .01].

It appears then that the effects of questions on the comprehension and retention of story materials in learning disabled children were quite specific. The questions appeared to have increased the comprehension and retention of idea units rated to be thematically most important. Their effects on the learning disabled children's comprehension and retention of idea units rated to be 3-point or less in thematic importance appeared to be marginal.

Table 1 shows the mean recall-of-idea units in normally achieving and learning disabled children distributed across four categories of rated thematic importance. It is recalled that the story contained 14 idea units rated to be thematically most important (i.e., 4-point ratings). Thus, normally achieving children in the Questions Condition recalled 38.07% of idea units with 4-point ratings, normally achieving students in the No-

TABLE 1

MEAN RECALL OF IDEA UNITS iN NORMALLY ACHIEVING AND LEARNING DISABLED FIFTH GRADERS

AS A FUNCTION OF QUESTIONS AND IMPORTANCE LEVELS OF IDEA UNITS

Thematically Thematically Most Important Least Important

4-Pt. Ratings 3-Pt. Ratings 2-Pt. Ratings 1-Pt. Rating

Normally Achieving Fifth Graders

With Questions- 5.33 3.47 1.73 1,87 Without Questions 5.87 4.40 2.33 2.33

Learning Disabled Fifth Graders

With Questions 6.07 3.47 0.93 1.13 Without Questions 3.27 2.73 0.87 1.27




Questions Condition recalled 41.92%. Learning disabled children in the Questions Condition recalled 43.36% of the same idea units. The poorest performance was found among learning disabled children in the No- Questions Condition who recalled 23.36% of the idea units rated to be thematically most important. It is observed that our findings compare favorably with those reported by Hansen (1978). In both story retells and analysis of proposition levels, Hansen (1978) found that learning disabled students recalled 25.1% of propositions and included 23% of superordinate propositions (main ideas). In contrast, she found that average readers recalled 35.5% of the story propositions and included 40% of superordinate propositions. These results were based on a fifth-grade story (cf. Hansen, 1978).

DISCUSSION Our purpose in this study was to in-

vestigate whether or not the use of questions would increase learning disabled children's comprehension and retention of main ideas in a given story. Within the context of

Torgesen's conceptual framework and based on previous research, it was predicted that the use of questions would activate the cognitively inactive learning disabled children, resulting in their improved comprehension and retention of the main ideas of the story. The results clearly substantiated our prediction.

It appears that the questions preceding respective target paragraphs of the story directed the learning disabled children to search for the answers as they read the paragraphs. In the process of such informational search, the learning disabled children became actively involved in their own reading rather than being passive readers. Moreover, because the questions were formulated from idea units rated thematically most important to the story, they oriented the learning disabled children to focal points in the story and, thus, facilitated their comprehension. In short, because the learning disabled children read to answer the given questions, they ceased to be what Torgesen (1977a) terms the inactive learner who typically does not participate in his/her own learning. The outcome of active cognitive processing engaged in by the learning disabled children was clear. Those in the

Questions Condition recalled as many idea units rated to be thematically most important as the normally achieving children. However, those learning disabled children not given questions preceding the target paragraphs recalled only 23% of idea units rated to be thematically most important. Obviously, they had been inactive learners during the story reading session.

Interestingly, the performance of the normally achieving children demonstrated that the presence of the questions was super- fluous. They appeared to be spontaneously engaged in active cognitive processing of what they read and could independently comprehend and retain idea units rated to be thematically most important. This observation was not due to any ceiling effects, since the mean recall of idea units rated to be thematically most important in normally achieving children never exceeded 50%. The con- trasting performances of the normally achieving children provide additional support to Torgesen's (1977a) conceptualization of the learning disabled child as an inactive learner.

It is recalled that the present study used relatively simple story materials and, for reasons previously given, only fifth graders. Thus, replication with expository materials and a wider age group appears necessary to ascertain the generalizability of the present results and the viability of questions as an ef- fective aid to increase comprehension and retention of main ideas in learning disabled children.

Moreover, our results in no way imply that learning disabled children have a clear concept of a main idea. On the contrary, we maintain that a sizeable portion of learning disabled children need direct instruction on the concept of a main idea. In this regard, we agree with Hansen (1978).

Our findings have important educational implications. The effectiveness of questions in increasing comprehension and retention of story materials in learning disabled students suggests that Learning Assistance teachers and remedial teachers could adopt them as a teaching tool in remediating comprehension problems. However, it is pertinent to note that there must be a sound rationale for for- mulating the questions (cf. Anderson, 1972).




Since the research cited previously and the present findings indicate that learning disabled students differ from their normally achieving peers in recalling main ideas and not supporting details, questions should be formulated from main ideas in the materials to be read, rather than from obscure or isolated facts. Moreover, where the main ideas involve implied inferences, sequential questions rather than a single question may be required to achieve the desired goal.

REFERENCES

Anderson, R.C. How to construct achievement tests to assess comprehension. Review of Edu- cational Research, 1972, 42, 145-170.

Anderson, R.C., & Biddle, W.B. On asking peo- ple questions about what they are reading. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory. New York: Academic Press, 1975, 89-132.

Bateman, B. Teaching reading to learning disabled children. Paper presented at the Reading Conference sponsored by the National Institute of Education at the Learning, Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburg. April to June, 1976.

Brown, A.L., & Smiley, S.S. Rating the importance of structural units of prose passages: A problem of metacognitive development. Child Development, 1977, 48, 1-8.

Golinkoff, R.M. A comparison of reading comprehension processes in good and poor compre- henders. Reading Research Quarterly, 1975-1976, XI(4), 623-658.

Hallahan, D.P., Gajar, A.H., Cohen, S.B., & Tarver, S.G. Selective attention and locus of control in learning disabled and normal children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1978, 11(4), 67-52.

Hansen, C.L. Story retelling used with average and learning disabled readers as a measure of reading comprehension. Learning Disability Quarterly, 1978, 1, 62-69.

Hori, A.K. An investigation of the efficacy of a question training procedure on increasing the reading comprehension performance of junior- high school learning disabled students. Unpub- lished master's thesis, University of Kansas, 1977.

Knapczyk, D.R., & Livingston, G. The effects of prompting question asking upon on-task behavior and reading comprehension. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1974, 7(1), 115-121.

Manzo, A.V. The request procedure. Journal of Reading, 1969, 13(2), 123-126; 163.

Meichenbaum, D., & Asarnow, J. Cognitive-behavior modification and metacognitive development: Implications for the classroom. In P. Kendall & S. Hollon (Eds.), Cognitive-behav- ioral interventions: Theory, research and pro- cedures. New York: Academic Press, 1978.

Meyer, B.J., Brandt, D.M., & Bluth, G.J. Use of author's textual schema: Key for ninth graders' comprehension. Paper presented at the Ameri- can Educational Research Association Conven- tion in Toronto, Canada, March 1978.

Rinke, M.M. An investigation of the relevancy of student-initiated questioning in a special class setting as it is related to on-task behavior and ac- curacy of performance on reading assignments. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Kan- sas, 1975.

Smiley, S.S., Oakley, D.D., Worthen, D., Cam- pione, J.C., & Brown, A.L. Recall of thematically relevant material by adolescent good and poor readers as a function of written versus oral presentation. Journal of Educational Psy- chology, 1977, 69, 4, 381-389.

Torgesen, J.K. The role of nonspecific factors in the task performance of learning disabled children: A theoretical assessment. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 1977, 10, 27-34. (a)

Torgesen, J.K. Memorization processes in reading disabled children. Journal of Educational Psy- chology, 1977, 69, 571-578. (b)

Twardasz, S., & Baer, D.M. Training two severely retarded adolescents to ask questions. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6(4), 655-661.

Wong, B. Comprehension and retention of implied information in normal achieving and learning disabled children. Paper presented at the In- ternational Association for Children with Learn- ing Disabilities, San Francisco, March 1979.

Wong, B. The effects of directive cues on the or- ganization of memory and recall in good and poor readers. Journal of Educational Research, 1978, 72, 32-38.

Wong, B., Wong, R., & Foth, D. Recall and clustering of verbal materials among normal and poor readers. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1977, 19, 375-378.

FOOTNOTES

'Brown and Smiley (1977) reported 15 idea units with 4-point ratings and 15 idea units with 3-point ratings. However, a careful check of the stimuli detected a numerical error. Actually 14 idea units with 4-point ratings and 16 with 3-point ratings were found.




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Increasing Retention of Main Ideas through Questioning Strategies