Effects on Science Summarization of a Reading Comprehension Intervention for Adolescents with Behavior and Attention Disorders

Abstract

Sixty-three adolescent boys with behavioral disorders (BD), 31 of whom had comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), participated in a self-regulated strategy development intervention called Think Before Reading, Think While Reading, Think After Reading, With Written Summarization (TWA-WS). TWA-WS adapted Linda Masons TWA intervention by adding written summarization, focusing on self-monitoring, and using only science text. TWA-WS participants showed significantly greater gains than a matched comparison group, which practiced literacy tasks with the same text, on reading comprehension as measured through written summarization (η 2 = .42). The increases for TWA-WS generalized both to social studies text and to a more complex composing-from-sources task. Effects of comorbid ADHD appeared on generalization and maintenance (d = 0.73 to 1.49) but not posttest measures.