hat helping students to learn all forms of freewriting, including outlining, can improve their ability to learn. For example, in a study of classroom instruction in which students were taught how to condense and reduce orally presented information, including reducing information to an outline, it was found that improving the freewriting ability of students immediately increased their ability to understand oral communication (Hinkle & Hinkle, 1990).
One innovative and high-tech way teachers are currently instructing students in outlining is through the use of computer programs that provide outlines for students as tools for studying material in content area textbooks. The teacher shows students how to generate outlines using the computer program and then utilizes the outline each day as he or she begins the teaching of course material, referring to it frequently. This method has been shown to improve the test performance of high school students, especially those students whose performance is at the lower one-third of the class (Anderson-Inman, Redekopp & Adams, 1992).
In general, the term "readability" refers to the interaction between a students' level of reading ability and the level of ability for which a text or book was written; for example in one study of the readability of study habit books given to students taking a study skill class, it was found that the books were designed for students who had attained a college level of reading while students in the class only had a tenth grade reading level (Keetz, 1978). As a study skill, however, readability refers to the degree to which students are able to skim a reading passage and decide whether it is at or above their reading level (Kibby, 1979). Thus, a student's given readability skill lies in his or her ability to identify a certain number of words in a passage and know that on the basis of this evaluation whether or not the passage is at his/her level of readability (...