Rereading and its effects on reading comprehension

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of rereading as a metacognitive strategy termed focused rereading. The study was conducted over three weeks, involving sixty-six fifth grade subjects from four classrooms in one elementary school. Subjects were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: rereading with training (RRT), rereading without training (RRW), and a control assignment (CA). All subjects were pretested for prior knowledge during the first week, followed by training in the use of written retellings over four days during the second week. Specific treatment training, either in the focused rereading training or in a placebo training, occurred during the first four days of the third week. Post testing occurred on the final day of the third week, involving a test expository passage, a primary comprehension measure using written retelling, followed by a secondary comprehension measure using a multiple choice post test. Results showed no significant differences across treatment groups. High-achievement readers scored significantly better than low achievement readers across treatments. Written retellings appeared to measure different comprehension factors than multiple choice testing, however, both ranked performance in similar ways. Teacher evaluations of achievement were strongly similar to stanine evaluations of achievement.