High school readers: A profile of above average readers and readers with learning disabilities reading expository text

• Students with learning disabilities and good readers use similar reading strategies.
• Good readers use reading strategies more effectively than students with LD.
• Three profiles of reading strategy use are presented.
• Students rarely used reading strategies to evaluate the text.

This study examined above average high school readers and high school readers with learning disabilities in order to better understand the impact of twelve years of formal education on reading skills and strategy use while reading expository text. This study examined reading strategies related to knowledge construction, monitoring, and evaluating using verbal protocol analysis. Twenty-five eleventh and twelfth-grade students participated in this study, which included thirteen students with learning disabilities and twelve students with above average reading skills. The findings suggest that above average readers and students with learning disabilities share some characteristics. Both groups of students used rereading and paraphrasing as their primary mode of knowledge construction and demonstrated similar patterns in their strategy use. However, the above average readers used the strategies more effectively. The data suggest that students with learning disabilities may benefit from continued instruction at the secondary level in effective strategy use.