The Effects of the Modified GIST Strategy on the Reading Comprehension of English Language Learners with Disabilities

THE EFFECTS OF THE MODIFIED GIST STRATEGY ON THE READING COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS WITH DISABILITIES Elizabeth A. Horton, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2014 Dissertation Director: Dr. Frederick Brigham A single-subject multiple-probe multiple-baseline study was designed to investigate the effects of the Modified GIST Strategy on the summarizing skills of five English language learners with disabilities between the ages of 15 and 17 years old. The five participants were in grades nine through 11 and were enrolled in both an English class as well as a reading remediation class. The participants were enrolled in a public high school located in a diverse school district near a metropolitan city in the MidAtlantic area of the United States. The participants were pulled from remedial reading courses for approximately 22 individual sessions with the researcher in the reading resource room and school library. Baseline data was collected prior to the implementation of the Modified GIST Strategy, and the participants were randomly assigned to an intervention tier and intervention start date. The dependent measures included (1) modified GIST summary statements, (2) standardized and informal reading assessments, and (3) the Adolescent Motivation to Read Profile. Following the baseline phase, the participants received tutoring in the Modified GIST Strategy through modeling and guided instruction. The participants were involved in six tutoring sessions that ranged from 20 to 50 minutes of instruction that included lessons on the before, during and after reading components of the Modified GIST Strategy. The participants were taught how to use the strategy to summarize expos itory articles from Scholastic Action magazines. Each participant practiced using the entire strategy three times with the researcher prior to moving onto the intervention phase. During the intervention phase, the participants read Scholastic Action magazine articles and practiced used the Modified GIST strategy independently to summarize the articles. Additionally, each participant completed a generalization phase simultaneously with the intervention phase in a science classroom or the reading resource room. During generalization, the participants were asked to read expository passages from a science text book and summarize the main idea of each passage. Two weeks following the intervention phase, maintenance data was collected for each participant. During maintenance, the participants were asked to read randomly selected Scholastic Action magazine articles and complete the Modified GIST Strategy template. Procedural fidelity was measured, and two observers completed fidelity checklists for between 33% and 50% of the sessions across all participants and phases. Procedural fidelity was averaged to be 98.76%. Interobserver agreement was completed for the scoring of the Modified GIST Strategy Rubric by two independent observers and was averaged to be 95.02%. Social validity interviews were conducted with each participant following the intervention. The data was analyzed using visual analysis, PND, descriptive and nonparametric statistical procedures. The findings from the study indicated that: (a) all five participants demonstrated mastery of the Modified GIST Strategy steps following six tutoring sessions, (b) all five participants increased in their ability to summarize expository text immediately after instruction in the Modified GIST Strategy during the tutoring phase, (c) all five participants maintained their ability to summarize expository text at least two weeks following the intervention phase and three weeks following the instruction during the tutoring phase, (d) nonparametric tests indicated that the gains for the entire group of participants were significantly higher on the KTEA-II reading subtests, (e) three of the five participants demonstrated substantial gains on the KTEA-II reading subtests after instruction in the Modified GIST Strategy, (f) four out of five participants demonstrated improved comprehension scores on the QRI Expository Passages following instruction in the Modified GIST Strategy, (g) three out of five participants scored above the baseline probes during the generalization phase, (h) three out of five participants had improved scores in their motivation to read following participation in the research study. Limitations of the present study, as well as recommendations for researchers and practitioners were discussed to support further investigation of the use of the Modified GIST Strategy on improving summarizing skills of English language learners and students with disabilities.