Metacognition and Self-Regulated Comprehension

Abstract

Suppose that you ask a sixth grader (or a twelfth grader for that matter) to read a chapter in his or her science or social studies text in order to understand and remember what is in the chapter. What does the student do? Most students begin at the beginning of the chapter and read it sentence by sentence, if not word by word, from beginning to end. By grade 6, most children’s decoding abilities are good enough that they can read chapters in their textbook from beginning to end. The problem, however, is that many of those same students do not understand well what they read, let alone remember the content of the chapter later. A few interrelated points will be made in this chapter: (a) Skilled reading involves fluent word recognition, but also much more. Good comprehenders are extremely active as they read, using a variety of comprehension strategies in an articulated fashion as they read challenging text. (b) As part of reading instruction that includes word recognition and teaching of vocabulary, comprehension strategies can and should be taught beginning in the primary grades, with it now understood that long-term instruction of sophisticated comprehension strategies clearly improves student understanding and memory of texts that are read. (c) Comprehension strategies often are not taught. After these points are made, the nature of effective comprehension instruction will be reviewed in metacognitive terms. Metacognition is knowledge of thinking processes, both knowledge of the thinking occurring in the here and now (e.g., “I am really struggling to figure out how to write this introduction; I believe that the introduction I have just written makes sense”) and in the long term (e.g., “I know a number of specific strategies for planning a composition, rough drafting it, and revising the draft”). In the case of reading, the most important here-andnow metacognition is awareness of whether a text is being understood (or conversely, awareness of when text is not being understood and probably will not be remembered). Long-term metacognition pertaining