The Instructionon Identifying Main Ideas in Improving the Reading Comprehension of Poor Readers

In this study, the effect of the main ideas strategy instruction on the development of the reading comprehension of three fourth-grade students who had difficulty in reading, was assessed by using a multiple-probe design across the participants. The data were analyzed by means of graphical analysis. The participants' reading comprehension performance in the teaching sessions and in full probes was evaluated through the use of short-answer reading comprehension questions that consisted narrative texts. The maintenance of the ability to identify the main ideas was probed at three and five weeks following the implementation of the main ideas instruction. In addition, social validity data were used to evaluate the qualitative dimensions of the effects of the instructional program. Findings of this study showed that the instruction on identifying main ideas contributed to all three participants in learning to identify the main ideas and key details, and in maintaining these learned skills and providing a higher-level of reading comprehension performance compared to the baseline probe sessions. All results indicate that the main ideas strategy instruction utilizing the direct instruction model can improve the reading comprehension scores of the participants, identified as poor readers.