Abstract:
The study investigated the effects of three summary writing strategies; Direct Instruction, Cognitive Strategy and ReadTest Strategy on Senior Secondary School student’s achievement in English language summary writing. The study population
consists of 12,766 Senior Secondary year two (SS 2) students from Edo South Senatorial District and a sample of 373 students
participated in the study. Three research questions which were all hypothesized guided the conduct of the research. A pre-test and
post-test quasi experimental design was used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was an Achievement Test in
Summary Writing (SATSW) adopted from past West African Examination Council (WAEC) English language Paper 2 question
paper. The reliability of the instrument was r.96 with an inter-rater reliability estimate of .89. Both descriptive and inferential
statistics such as frequency, mean, standard deviation and ANCOVA were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed
significant difference in achievement amongst students taught using the different strategies. The results showed that the
experimental group performed better with Direct Instruction Strategy being the most effective for teaching students summary
writing. Cognitive Strategy was also found to contribute to students’ summary writing than the Read-Test Strategy. Thus, it was
recommended that English language teachers should be exposed to training in summary writing strategies like Direct Instruction
and Cognitive Strategy through workshops and seminars with the hope that this would help to enhance students’ summary writing
skills.