The Effects of Cooperative Learning and Direct Instruction in Reading Comprehension Strategies on Main Idea Identification

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the impact of direct instruction on reading comprehension strategies and the degree to which cooperative learning processes enhance student's learning of strategies. Students were assigned to instructional treatments on strategies for identifying the main idea of passages. Treatments involved cooperative learning with direct instruction, direct instruction alone and traditional instruction control. Students in the two instructional treatments which incorporated direct instruction on main idea strategies performed significantly better than control students in identifying main ideas of passages.