Making the right connections: Differential effects of reading intervention for subgroups of comprehenders

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of different types of questioning interventions on students' reading comprehension. Fourth-grade students (n = 246) were identified as struggling, average, or good readers and assigned randomly within school to one of three questioning interventions: two inferential conditions (Causal or General) or one literal condition (“Who, What, Where, When” or W-questioning). Teachers delivered the interventions for 20–30 min, 2–4 times per week, for 8–10 weeks. All readers made reliable pre- to posttest comprehension gains as measured by story recall (ps < .001 to .04). Differential effects for intervention were found between two subgroups of struggling comprehenders—elaborators and paraphrasers. Elaborators benefited more than paraphrasers from Causal questioning (d = .86) whereas paraphrasers benefited more than elaborators from General questioning (d = 1.46). These findings suggest that identifying subgroups is important in developing and evaluating the effectiveness of reading comprehension interventions.

► We examined different types of readers' response to three questioning approaches.
► Struggling, average, and good readers showed significant comprehension gains.
► We identified subgroups of struggling comprehenders: elaborators and paraphrasers.
► We observed a subgroup-by-questioning intervention interaction.
► Identifying subgroups appears important in studies of reading intervention effects.