Examining effects of note-taking and extended writing on the expository text comprehension of fourth grade students

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine (1) the extent to which taking notes about text and writing an extended response about text would enhance reading comprehension for fourth grade students, (2) whether note taking was more effective than extended writing for improving reading comprehension across three measures, and (3) whether the effects of the writing tasks were moderated by student writing ability. Students were randomly assigned to a note taking condition which they took notes about an expository text, an extended writing condition in which they compared and contrasted ideas from the text with their own experiences, or a read and study control condition in which they studied the important ideas from the text. Minimal instruction was provided to the students in each treatment group during a single 45 minute session, primarily to ensure they understood their assigned task. The students then met for another 45 minute session, during which they were asked to read an expository passage and complete their assigned task. Students’ reading comprehension was tested using three measures. Students in the two writing groups made significantly greater gains than students in the read and study condition on the multiple choice inference measure. However, the results are tempered by low internal consistency found for the measure. No other statistically significant differences were found between the treatment groups, and no significant moderator effects were found. Implications for future research are framed in terms of the limitations of the study.