Efficacy of Reading Strategies for Female School Age Children : Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap

The purpose of this study was to compare the performance of typical female students and students with mental retardation on three approaches of teaching reading comprehension. These teaching approaches were a conventional teaching method, a modified version of reciprocal teaching, and a key word strategy. Two groups of Emirati students were recruited: Group 1 (24 typical female, age range= 7.8-12 years) and Group 2 (12 students with mental handicap, age range= 11-18 years). Detailed procedures were outlined beforehand and implemented by the teachers. Statistical analyses (MANOVA) revealed that there were significant differences in group 1 students’ achievement on the three teaching methods, F(2,46) = 18.37, P< .001.The Tukey (HSD) follow-up procedure revealed that there were significant differences at the .05 level between students’ performance on method 1 (the conventional teaching method) and their performance on method 2 (the reciprocal teaching method) and method 3 (the key word strategy); however, the Tukey test did not reveal a significant difference between students’ performance on method 2 and their performance on method 3. The MANOVA revealed that there were no significant differences in group 2 (students with mental handicap) students’ achievement on the three teaching methods F (2,22) = 1.99, p< .160. That is, the apparent differences in students’ achievement are not large enough to yield statistically significant differences. This means that the modified reciprocal ������ �������� �������.indd 1 3/6/16 11:44 AM Efficacy of Reading Strategies for Female School Age Children: Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap (1-20) 2 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 teaching and the key word strategy were more effective in enhancing typical students’ achievement than the conventional teaching method. The analyses, however, did not produce significant differences between the modified reciprocal teaching and the key word strategy. As for students with mental retardation, the statistical analysis revealed no significant differences in student’s performance among the three strategies. However, a trend was obvious that the modified reciprocal teaching method appears to be more effective than the other two in enhancing students’ comprehension achievement. Suggestions for future research are discussed.


Introduction:
The ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend not only the isolated words but to organize and comprehend ideas into a coherent mental model which requires processing words successively (Mahapatra, Das, Stack-Cutler and Parrila, 2010).Reading proficiency requires two highly related processes: word reading and reading comprehension (Oakhill, Cain, & Bryant, 2003).Kerby and Savage (2008) stated that reading comprehension is a product of both listening comprehension and word decoding processes.That is, a balance between listening comprehension and decoding skills is essential for reader effort conservation, where effort is not spent wholly on implementing comprehension strategies nor decoding letters (Wooley, 2010(Wooley, , 2006;;Kendeou, Savage & Van den Broek, 2009, Kendeou, van den Broek, Helder, & Karlsson, 2014.).As teaching aims at students' active interaction with different subject areas to ensure task acquisition and long-term retention.This basic principle applies to typical students enrolled in regular classrooms and children with mental disabilities enrolled in special needs classrooms.To achieve that goal, many teaching strategies can be used.Those strategies have elements such as elaboration, rehearsing, and summarization which are important for acquiring information (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986).A number of these strategies target the area of reading comprehension.Examples are SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review) (Robinson, 1961), CBM (Cognitive Behavior Modification) (Meichenbaum, 1985), Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1985), POSSE (Predict, Organizer Search, Summarize, and Evaluate) (Englert & Mariage, 1991), Collaborative Problem Solving (Palincsar, David, Winn, & Stevens, 1991), and the Key Word Strategy (Al-Hilawani, 1991).Structure elements such as elaboration and rehearsing which are important for acquiring understanding, and retrieving information from memory are implicitly incorporated in these teaching strategies (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986;Wooley, 2007).
Students' achievement in natural settings, whether in regular classrooms or in special needs classrooms, is key to measuring the effectiveness of a specific approach over another.Readers with poor comprehension, when compared to those with competent comprehension perform less on tasks involving lower levels of processing (Nation, Clarke, & Snowling, 2002).Such trials would provide empirical data about the strength and weakness of certain approaches since there are many uncontrollable variables at work in such natural settings (Helder, Van Leijenhorst, Beker, & van den Broek, 2013) Marston, Deno, Kim, Dirnent, and Rogers (1995) field tested the influence of six instructional approaches on the achievement of students with mild disabilities at the elementary level.The field test revealed that these six approaches using microcomputer-assisted instruction and direct instruction methods with a basal reading series affected higher student achievement when compared with instructions provided by teachers.However, when the authors compared the effectiveness of the six teaching approaches on students' achievements, they found that gains in achievement are likely to occur when using microcomputer-assisted instruction, direct instruction with a basal reading series, or a reciprocal teaching method, but not when using peer tutoring.
Field testing instructional strategies gain momentum once evidence from special education classrooms is incorporated into the overall scheme.A number of studies have evaluated the effects of various instructional strategies for improving oral reading and reading comprehension with children with mental retardation Allor, J., Gifford, Diane B., Al Otaiba, S., Miller, S., Cheatham, J., 2013).Evidence obtained from most of the comprehension strategies used (e.g.Comprehension in Heperlexic Readers) (Snowling & Frith, 1986), (Direct Instruction Approach) (Poloway, 1986), (Expository Passages) (Bos & Tierney, 1984), (Auditory Training) (D 'Alonzo, Zucker & Stanley, 1983;Chang, 1983) revealed no significant impact on the achievement of students with mental retardation; While some comprehension strategies (e.g.Behavioral remediation Program, Singh & Singh, 1986) did not prove to have clear improvement in reading comprehension for the subjects.However, Flower and Davis (1985) reported that using the story frame approach can help improve reading comprehension skills of educable children with mental retardation.More reading comprehension strategies were developed where children learn to interpret, remember, manipulate and use information (Das, Parrila, & Papadopoulos, 2000;McMaster, Espin, van den Broek, 2014;McMaster, van den Broek, Espin, White, Rapp, Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, & Carlson, 2012).One recent example utilized a group of nine strategies that advocate the systematic reading comprehension strategy which requires thinking before, while and after reading.Students learned to self-monitor and selfreinforce their reading performance which helped them to regulate their strategy use and sustain attention during reading (Hedin, Mason & Gaffney, 2011).Harris and Graham (2003)  self-regulate strategies as a pre-requisite to reading using six stages of instruction including developing pre skills, discussing the strategy, modeling the strategy, memorizing the strategy, guided practice and independent practice.
The purpose of this current study, therefore, was to field test an adapted form of reciprocal teaching and the key word strategy on the achievement of typical students in regular classroom setting (in this case third grade female) as well as children with mental handicap in special needs classroom setting.The reasons that prompted the use of these two methods is to provide further insight into the efficacy of the methods and test their impact.In other words, would the teaching strategies prompt certain degrees of achievement, if any, in both groups?However, there are three reasons that prompted the use of these two methods with typical students as well as children with mental handicap.First, comprehension is a critical part of teaching reading for both groups.In other words, comprehension is the end result of any reading process and any reading teaching method.Second, strategy instruction is relatively unpracticed in teaching typical students or students with mental handicap.Third, one of the goals in education is to help all students, regardless of their mental ability reach their potentials and enhance their achievement.

Methods: Participants:
Two groups of students from the United Arab Emirates were the subjects of this study.Group 1 consisted of 24 typical female students (Mean= 9.4, SD= 1.45, Range= 7.8-12 years) in third grade class who were taught in regular classrooms (followed up by one female teacher).Group 2 were three classes of 12 students with mental handicap (Mean= 14.1, SD= of 1.74, Range= 11-18 years).Those students were 5 females (Mean=13.5,SD=1.46;Range =11.8-14.5 years) and 7 males (Mean=14.5,SD=1.90, Range=13-18 years) who were taught in special education classrooms from two different centers (followed up by one male and two female special education teachers).Students who did not meet the criterion of going through the three phases of this study and taking the three exams were excluded.The teachers volunteered to participate based on the fact that they had shown interest in trying different methods in teaching their students (method 1, conventional approach, method 2 reciprocal approach and method 3 key word strategy).

Procedures:
The procedures used in this study were as follows: First, three lessons in sequence were chosen from the third reading book for the students in group 1 (i.e., lessons 8, 9, and 10) and from the first grade reading book used by group 2 (i.e., lessons 19, 20, and 21).The teachers were informed that the investigation would start after they had finished teaching lesson 7 and 18 for both groups 1 and 2 respectively.Also, the teachers were asked to document in writing every activity as well as steps that they would follow in teaching the first lesson (i.e.lesson 8 for group 1 and 19 for group 2).The teachers followed the conventional teaching method of reading comprehension in teaching the first lesson.
Second, the authors prepared short answer questions that cover each of the three lessons.For group 1, the number of questions written for each lesson was 8 questions.These questions were classified as detail (number of questions = 4), word meaning (number of questions = 2), and inferential (number of questions = 2).As for group 2, the number of questions written for each lesson was 7 questions.These questions were classified as detail (number of questions = 3), word meaning (number of questions = 2), and inferential (number of questions = 2).The lesser number of questions prepared for group 2 was justified by their lesser mental capabilities.
Third, the authors delivered the questions that covered the first lessons (8 and 19 for group1 and 2, respectively) on the same day on which students were to take the first test.This procedure was followed in all three tests.The first comprehension test that covered the teacher's conventional teaching method was given after two weeks of teaching the first lessons (8 and 19).During the course of this investigation, teaching the three lessons using the different teaching approaches always started at the beginning of the week; and students were always tested at the end of the second week of implementing each teaching approach.
Fourth, the teachers started applying method 2 immediately after students had taken the first test.They were given a step-by-step hand-out indicating the agreed upon sequence of the method.The authors did the follow up and responded to teacher's inquiries.At the end of the second week of applying the method 2, the authors delivered the test questions related to the second lesson (9 and 20) to measure students' understanding.Fifth, the teachers started applying method 3 at the beginning of the week after students had taken the second test.The teachers were given a step-by-step handout listing the agreed on sequence of method 3. Informing the teachers about the content and elements of the method was done after the teachers had finished using method 2 and students had been tested.This was done on the same day on which students were tested over lessons 9 and 20.At the end of the second week during which the teachers had applied method 3, the authors delivered the last test that covered lessons 10 and 21 to measure students' comprehension.
Preventing carry over effects between methods was the reason for implementing method 3 (the key word strategy) as the last teaching approach.For example, the key word strategy emphasized the internalization of selecting words and using them as clues to aid in retrieving information from memory; this process might have been used by students had method 2 (reciprocal teaching) been used last, the result of which would be contaminating the outcome of this study with the repeated measure design using the same group of students ( i.e., subject own their control or a cross over design).

Implementation Procedures:
Procedures were based on previous studies (Al-Hilawani, 2003;Sartawi, Al-Hilawani, & Easterbrooks, 1998).This arrangement was convenient since the procedures were proven to be reasonable and stable.Additionally, the authors were able to better train the teachers avoid administration problems (e.g.controlling some external variable such ensuring good recording quality and quite classroom environment).This helped solidify the implemented procedures for both the teachers and the researchers.

Group 1:
Method 1.The conventional teaching method as implemented by the regular education teacher consisted of the following steps: First, preparing students for lesson 8 titled "The Weather Station" by switching on a tape recorder for the students to listen to the weather forecast.Meanwhile, the teacher wrote the title of the lesson on the board.Then the teacher asked students a few questions such as "why do people listen to the weather forecast?What are the instruments needed to predict the weather?".finished reading silently, the teacher discussed with them some ideas about the lesson to check for general understanding.
Third, the teacher read the lesson aloud from a plastic board prepared in advance and put in front of students so they could see it; then the teacher asked students to open their books and to follow her while she was reading from her book.
Fourth, the teacher asked students to read the lesson aloud starting with good readers, then average readers, and finally poor readers.
Fifth, the teacher discussed with students and urged them to predict the meaning of difficult vocabularies in each paragraph and to put them in sentences.
Sixth, the teacher came up with the main ideas in the lesson and wrote them on the board; then she asked students to read them.
Seventh, the teacher asked students to take turns in reading the lesson aloud.
Method 2. After the teacher and students read the first paragraph in lesson 9 titled "Our Fertile Farm Land", the teacher applied the following steps: First, summarizing the paragraph to students and asking them if they would like to add more information to what she had said.
Second, formulating questions about each paragraph and discussing students' answers to these questions.
Third, clarifying ambiguous words and sentences to students.
Fourth, predicting the content of the next paragraph and discussing the validity of her prediction with students after the next paragraph had been introduced.
The above adaptation of method 2 (reciprocal teaching method ) was made for the following reasons: First, the teacher was not comfortable with each student assuming the teacher's role in teaching the lesson as reported in the original reciprocal teaching method (Palincsar & Brown, 1985) since the class consisted of a heterogeneous group of students.
Second, it was not feasible for the teacher to give each student in class the chance to assume the teacher's role in a two-week period.
These two reasons were legitimate concerns that had been voiced by the teacher during the discussion of elements of the original reciprocal teaching method and their appropriate implementation as reported by Palincsar and Brown.
Method 3. The key word strategy was the last teaching method that was used with the same class of typical students.It contained the following steps: First, the teacher talked in general terms about the target topic (i.e., lesson 10, titled "Moral Acts") to find out what ideas students might have about the topic.
A dialogue took place between the teacher and students about the definition of a moral act using real examples from the local community.
Second, the teacher and students read each paragraph silently.Students were encouraged to predict the meaning of difficult vocabularies and to ask for help when needed.
Third, the teacher and students selected key words while reading silently and wrote them down; these words would help students retrieve the information from memory about the lesson that they had read.
Fourth, each student started taking turn asking other students in class to state what happened before and after the words she had selected.The student whose turn was to orally say her list of words gave additional clues to the student who was asked to respond to her words when the selected key words were not enough to help retrieve the appropriate information.The teacher was the first to start the activity using three words for demonstrations.Her role decreased gradually to transfer to students the responsibility of conducting all the activities.
Fifth, students prepared two to three written questions about each paragraph to measure understanding.They started addressing these questions to other students in class.The student who is turn was to state the questions gave hints when the student who was asked did not know the answer.The teacher helped those who had problems generating questions by either modeling the process of how to make questions or asking another student in the class to help that student under her supervision.
Sixth, students summarized the whole lesson orally.
The purpose of this method is to help student internalize self-awareness and selfregulatory behaviors in order to keep information active in memory.It helps process information at the deep semantic level (Craik & Lockhart, 1972;Al-Hilawani, Marchant, & Poteet, 1994).First, they prepared the lesson for the students by asking them questions about trips and recreation and their opinion about the topic of the lesson, i.e. visiting farms.

Efficacy of Reading
Second, they presented pictures of farms in which there were groups of houses.
Students were asked to describe these questions.
Third, the teachers read the lesson aloud.Then, teachers and students read the lesson together loudly.
Fourth, the teachers presented and analyzed the new words using cards and the blackboard.
Fifth, each student read the lesson loudly while the teachers corrected their errors.
Then, they were asked to read the lesson silently.
Sixth, students wrote the lesson on their copybooks with the teacher's assistant.
Seventh, students did the exercises and teachers gave them feedback.
Method 2. Teachers and students read the first paragraph in lesson 20 titled "My Father Grows Vegetables", then teachers summarized the paragraph to students and asked them if they would like to add more information.Afterwards, teachers formulated questions about each paragraph and discussed the students' answers to these questions.The teachers clarified the ambiguous words and sentences with the students, and finally, predicted the content of the next paragraph and discussed the validity of their prediction with students.
Method 3.This strategy was the last teaching method used.It contained the following steps: First, each teacher discussed the lesson (i.e., lesson 21, titled "Farm Trees") to find out the student's background knowledge and ideas that they might have.
Second, teachers and students read each paragraph silently and wrote down selected key words.It was assumed that these words would help the students retrieve information from memory about the lesson they read.Third, each student started taking turn asking other students in the class to state what happened before and after the words he/she selected.The teachers were the first to start the activity using three words for demonstrations.The teachers' role decreased gradually by transferring to students the responsibility of conducting all the activities to the students.
Fourth, students were asked to prepare two or three written questions about each paragraph to measure understanding.They started addressing these questions to other students in class.Finally, the students were asked to summarize the whole lesson orally.

Results:
Tables l-2 present comprehension performance data both groups following the three teaching methods (regular teaching, reciprocal teaching, and key word strategy) as implemented by the teachers.Figures 1-2, on the other hand are visual representations of the sum of correct answers for the two groups of students, respectively.The tables and figures display a general trend that the performance of both student groups was the highest when method 2 (the reciprocal teaching method) was used in teaching reading comprehension.On the other hand, the performance of group 1 (typical students) was highest when both method 2 and 3 were used in teaching reading comprehension.For group 1, the average performance for students was 7.377 correct out of 8 total scores for method 2 and 6.833 out of 8 total scores for method 3.However, students' performance was 5.125 out of 8 total scores on method 1.The average performance of group 2 students, on the other hand, was 4.00 correct out of a total score of 7 for method 2, while it was 3.167 and 2.750 out of 7 for methods 1 and 3, consecutively.
A Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with repeated measures was used to analyze the results of this study.The analysis of variance revealed that there were significant differences in group 1 students' achievement on the three teaching methods, F(2,46) = 18.37,P< .001.That is, differences in students' achievement are not the same across the three teaching methods.
The Tukey (HSD) follow-up procedure was used to compare students' means performance on the three teaching methods.It revealed that there were significantdifferences at the .05level between students' performance on method 1 (the conventional teaching method) and their performance on method 2 (the reciprocal teaching method) and method 3 (the key word strategy), Students' performance was significantly higher when method 2 and 3 were used to teach reading comprehension.However, the Tukey test did not reveal a significant difference between students' performance on method 2 and their performance on method 3.This indicates that both methods are effective in enhancing students' comprehension level as measured by their achievement on comprehension tests.
However, the MANOVA revealed that there were no significant differences in group 2 (Students with mental handicap) students' achievement on the three teaching methods F (2,22) = 1.99, p< .160.That is, the apparent differences in students' achievement are not large enough to yield statistically significant differences.Since the MANOVA did not reveal any significant differences among the three methods, no follow up statistical procedures were used.

Discussion:
The question that was posed in this study was whether or not the use of a modified version of reciprocal teaching and the steps of the key word strategy would lead to better students' achievement in the two groups of students, typical students and students with metal handicap.

Group 1 (typical students):
The results revealed that students' achievement was the highest when methods 2 and 3 (the modified reciprocal teaching and the key word strategy) were used to teach reading comprehension.Students' achievement using these two methods was greater than their achievement on the method 1 (the conventional teaching method).Table 1 shows that the sum of correct answers on each of the three types of questions was also higher when method 2 and 3 (reciprocal teaching and the key word strategy) were used.The results, however, did not reveal a significant difference between achievement on method 2 and achievement on method 3.
When comparing methods 2 and 3 in terms of the number of correct answers on each type of questions, table 1shows that using method 2 yielded a higher number of correct answers for the three types of questions than method ; this is the not a large difference between the two methods.However, it indicates better, though not significant, results (see Figure 1).Examining the results of group 2 (students with mental handicap) may shed more light the teaching strategies used Group 2 (students with mental handicaps) : The results of this study did not reveal any significant differences in achievement of group 2 students on the three methods of teaching.However, Figure 2 shows a general trend of scoring higher when method 2 (the modified reciprocal teaching) was used, followed by method 1 (the conventional approach) then method 3 (the key word strategy).Also, When comparing the three methods in terms of the number of correct answers on each type of questions, Table 2 shows that the use of method 2 (reciprocal teaching) yielded a higher number of correct answers for the inferential questions (13 correct answers) than method 1 (the conventional teaching method) (5 correct answers).This is the largest difference between the three methods.Although differences in scores on the other three types of questions are in favor of method 2, these differences are small and marginal (see Table 2).
A peculiar result reveals lower student achievement when method 3 (the key word strategy) was used than method 1 (the conventional teaching strategy).Being with mental retardation may have rendered method 3 difficult to grasp for the students with mental handicaps.This method may be too demanding for such students since its basic philosophy relies on enhancing self-awareness and self-regulatory behaviors to help students process information at the deep level (i.e., semantic level) (Craik & Lockhart, 1972;Al-Hilawani, Marchant, & Poteet, 1994).It also requires information retrieval skills.Those skills may be difficult for students with mental retardation to grasp because of their low cognitive abilities and memory deficiencies (Singh & Singh, 1986;Snowling & Frith, 1986).
The results of this study support the use of the modified version of reciprocal teaching (method 2) as compared with the conventional teaching method in teaching (method 1) with typical students and students with mental handicap.Previous research studies have also provided support for the use of reciprocal teaching and its robust effect on students' performance (e"g., Palincsar & Brown, 1984;Lysynchuk, Pressley, & Vye, 1990;Bruce & Chan, 1991).The robust effect of reciprocal teaching is also evident in this current study; its modified version was effective in enhancing the performance of typical students in a regular classroom setting using the reading curriculum that is studied by all third grade elementary students in the United Arab Emirates.The results of this study also indicate the effectiveness of the key word strategy in using self-awareness and self-regulatory behaviors to teach reading comprehension.The trend of improving performance was also notable when the reciprocal teaching was used in teaching reading comprehension to students with mental disability.
This study is a modest attempt to compare the effectiveness of two instructional approaches with the conventional teaching method of reading comprehension.
Although some its results are significant, they might be taken tentatively for the following reasons: First, a major assumption in this study is that the three types of questions are a measure of reading comprehension.This assumption needs further validation.
Second, a six-week period during which time this study was carried out is not enough to pass a definite and a conclusive judgment about these teaching approaches.A longer period of implementation is required to test these methods adequately.
Third, students who participated in this study is are small classes in one school district (24) and a small group of students with mental disability (12) .Students from other schools in the region were not included in this study.
It appears, from evidence introduced in the current study, that students' task performance could be improved by using learning strategies (Al-Hilawani & Poteet, 1994).The reciprocal strategy seems to do just that for both typical students and students with mental handicap.Therefore, future research may focus on applying the three strategies, particularly, the reciprocal teaching strategy on a larger sample and a wider spectrum of disabilities.
provided a way to teach children how and when to use and 5 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 Female School Age Children: Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap (1-20) 6 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015

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University of SharjahJournal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 Second, the teacher asked students to read silently the whole lesson.When students Efficacy of Reading Strategies for Female School Age Children: Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap (1-20) 8 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 AbdelAziz M. Sartawi \ Yaser S. Natour \ Jamil M. Smadi (1-20) 11 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015

Note: METHOD 1 =
Conventional Teaching; METHOD 2 = Reciprocal Teaching; METHOD 3 = Key Word Strategy; SUM -Total Number of Correct Answers for Question Types; M = Means; SD = Standard Deviation; TOT = Total Scores on Efficacy of Reading Strategies for Female School Age Children: Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap (1-20) 12 University of Sharjah Journal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 Each Method; D = Detail; WM = Word Meaning; I = Inferential; Number of Main Idea Questions on Each Test = 1; Number of Detail Questions on Each Test = 5; Number of Word Meaning Questions on Each Test = 2; Number of Inferential Questions on Each Test = 2.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.A visual representations of the sum of correct answers for Group 1.

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University of SharjahJournal for Humanities & Social Sciences, Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015 Note: METHOD 1 = Conventional (Regular) Teaching; METHOD 2 = Reciprocal Teaching; METHOD 3 = Key Word Strategy; SUM = Total Number of Correct Answers for Question Types; M = Means; SD = Standard Deviation; TOT = Total Scores on Each.Method; D = Detail; WM = Word Meaning; I = Inferential; Number of Main Idea Questions on Each Test = 1; Number of Detail Questions on Each Test = 5; Number of Word Meaning Questions on Each Test = 2; Number of Inferential Questions on Each Test = 2.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. A visual representation of the sum of correct answers for Group 2.

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Efficacy of Reading Strategies for Female School Age Children: Typical Children Versus Children with Mental Handicap (1-20) Volume 12, No. 2 December 2015