Using Advance Organizers to Improve Reading Comprehension in Older Adults

Using an advance organizer, an instructional aid designed to precede a main passage and to provide an effective organizational framework for older adults who may not have spontaneously employed their own strategy for understanding written material, a study investigated whether (1) reading comprehension could be instructionally influenced and (2) this influence would differentially affect young and elderly adult learners. Subjects, 40 individuals aged 18-35 and 40 individuals aged 59-83, all with relatively high educational backgrounds, used an advance organizer with a prose passage. Results indicated that the advance organizer improved the performance of the elderly on measures of recognition memory but not on measures of recall memory. Both sets of subjects performed better on immediate tests than on delayed tests of recall and recognition. Analysis showed that subjects may have been able to generate their own advance organizers to some extent. The recognition test performance of the younger subjects was significantly superior to that of the older subjects under almost all of the conditions in which the main passage was read. Findings suggested that advance organizers may assist adults of all ages, but only under restricted circumstances. Results also indicated that older adult learners may need additional practice with educational aids to gain maximum benefit from their use. (JD)