Making Students Partners in the Comprehension Process: Organizing the Reading “Posse”

Abstract

This article reports on a comprehension procedure that makes visible to students their prior knowledge about a topic and the structures in expository text. The procedure used reciprocal-like teaching formats for the design of group interactions during instruction, as well as semantic mapping to make text structures apparent to students. Results suggested that strategy instruction using this procedure significantly affected recall of expository ideas and knowledge of comprehension strategies among students with learning disabilities. More importantly, it was the extent to which teachers were able to transfer control of reading strategies to students that appeared to affect students' developing strategy knowledge.