The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a reading comprehension program that focused on the instruction and modeling of a limited set of reading strategies in a motivating and meaningful reading context on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted in the Netherlands among 40 schools and 1469 children.  Our main reserach questions were 'What are the effects of the intervention on the reading skills of 3rd and 4th graders? And are there differential effects for children who differ in SES background, ethnicitiy, or decoding or vocabulary skills? Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. The intervention was conducted during two school years. Measurements of reading comprehension, knowledge of reading strategies, reading motivation, vocabulary, decoding skills and non verbal IQ took place at the beginning and end of grade 3 and at the end of grade 4. Multilevel analyses showed positive effects on knowledge of reading 

Background

Research shows reading comprehension instruction should focus on a limited set of strategies in an engaging context. (e.g., Pressley, 2006, Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). Pressley (2006) proposed in his Transactional Strategy Instruction that modeling of strategies is an important instructional technique. The teacher demonstrated the students by thinking aloud when and how to apply a strategy. To learn and internalize a strategy effectively, instruction over a longer period of time is needed (van der Stel, 2011). Moreover, the reader should be engaged in reading comprehension lessons (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000). Teachers, however, find it difficult to model strategies in an engaging way and are often unsure which strategies to choose (Andreassen & Bråten, 2011).  These aspects were worked out in an intervention program in which teachers were trained to model a limited set of strategies over a longer time. The modeling of strategies was conducted in the meaningful context of reading aloud of interesting and good quality children’s books. After reading aloud, children read in self chosen books and were stimulated to apply the strategies modeled by the teacher and take notes on a simple strategy checklist. To stimulate transfer to other text types, the same strategies were used and modeled when reading texts in the content areas.

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