This document summarizes a study that compared the effectiveness of questioning, clarifying, and a combination strategy on reading comprehension. The study involved 193 students in questioning, clarifying, combination, and control groups. Tests were administered pre- and post-instruction to measure reading comprehension and vocabulary. Results indicated that the clarifying group scored highest on reading comprehension and vocabulary tests. The combination strategy was also effective, while questioning was most beneficial for higher-proficiency students. The study demonstrates that clarifying instruction can improve comprehension.

1. Power of Clarifying : A Comparative Analysis of Strategies That Strengthen Comprehension Presenter: Andrew Liaw Instructor: Dr. Pi-Ying Hsu Dec. 10, 200 9

3. Content

4. Introduction (Nagy, 1988; Baker, et al., 1995)

5. Introduction (McKeown, 1986; Stanovich, 1988)

12. Research Design R X X X No-X Y Y Y No-Y O1 O2 O3 O4 Quasi-experimental design

13. Research Design

14. Participants

15. Participants 2-hr training after school

16. Questioning Groups Signal words Questioning stems

17. Clarifying or Combination Groups

18. Clarifying or Combination Groups Completely unknown Partial word knowledge well known

19. Questioning and Clarifying Groups

20. Control Groups (Keene & Zimmermann,1997)

21. Instrumentation Gates MacGinitie Reading ( Form K ) not included in instructional materials Stanford 9 (SAT 9) a) Reading comprehension, b) vocabulary, c) language subtest Two forms of Researcher-designed tests a) reading comprehension, b) vocabulary  from American Will Be achievement test pre- and post- tests Three types of reading and word comprehension tests

22. Two forms of Researcher-designed Tests

23. Validity & Reliability

24. Excerpt from the Researcher-designed Tests Note 1 Note 2

25. Results p articipants a flu epidemic

26. Results A range of students’ scores was from 3 to 28. The CLG ended the highest adjusted mean scores. Overall 193 17.99

27. Results A small effect (Cohen’s d= .28) was in favor of the CLG to the COG. Clarifying groups

28. Results A range of students’ scores was from 0 to 10. CLG’s adjusted mean scores were higher than the other groups’. Overall 193 5.55 2.18

29. Results The CLG’s scores were higher than the other groups’ (Cohen’s d ranging from .42 to .62). Clarifying groups

30. Results Questioning groups Clarifying groups

31. Results Clarifying groups

33. Practicality of Clarifying Strategy Instruction in Schools Why readily?

34. Effectiveness of Combined Strategy Instruction Why not?

35. Limitations and Directions for Future Research