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The Role of Metacognition in Reading Comprehension

Christina E. van Kraayenoord1

This chapter reviews the literature on the role of metacognition in reading com-

prehension. In the first two parts of the chapter, studies that have examined

metacognitive knowledge, and metacognitive monitoring and control in relation to

reading comprehension are described. Specifically, the most important studies to the

fieldthose that might be referred to as the classic studies of metacognitionaredescribed. The outcomes of these studies have identified both developmental dif-

ferences and differences amongst good and poor comprehenders. No reference is

made to studies involving judgments-of-learning linked to memory monitoring, as

distinct from comprehension monitoring, as these studies will be addressed in other

chapters of this book. Some studies that have investigated metacognitive knowledge

of memory strategies alongside reading comprehension are reported, but again it is

anticipated that most of the studies of metacognitive knowledge about memory will

be discussed in other chapters.

In the third part of the chapter studies involving the instruction of metacognitive

and comprehension-related strategies are reviewed. These studies have been

conducted to enhance students reading comprehension, and comprehension monitor-ing and control, and/or are studies that have examined the efficacy of metacognitive

and comprehension-related strategy instruction. This part of the review refers to

studies involving a range of students including those with learning disabilities.

Considerable attention is paid to particular programs and approaches because of their

influence on contemporary classroom instruction. Due to page number constraints

instructional studies that focus on peer-led (compared to teacher-led) classroom

discussion approaches in teaching comprehension and strategies for monitoring and

control of comprehension are not discussed (e.g., Almasi, 2002; Anderson, Chinn,

Waggoner & Nguyen, 1998; Echevarria, 1995; McKeown, Beck & Blake, 2009;

Raphael, Gavelek & Daniels, 1998). Furthermore, while a few of the studies using

these approaches have examined the effects of discussion on metacognition, they arenot described in this chapter (see Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessey & Alexander,

2009 for a meta-analysis).

1On a personal note it is a privilege to have known Wolfgang Schneider for over 25 years.Throughout his career Wolfgang has worked with a wide array of colleagues and I amhonoured to be amongst them. He has also been an important professional mentor to meand I thank him for that. His many contributions to the field of psychology and educationare remarkable in their quantity, quality and impact. Finally, I am pleased that I couldcontribute to this Festschrift marking his research and scholarship and presented to him onthe occasion of his 60th birthday. It is a fitting acknowledgement of, and tribute to,

Wolfgangs personal attributes and his professional life.


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278 Christina E. van Kraayenoord

The review has also attempted to be inclusive of an international perspective by

referring to recent research from Italy, Israel, Australia, and Great Britain, as well as

Germany. These studies provide an indication of the global community of researcherswho have investigated and continue to investigate metacognition and reading

comprehension.

In the fourth part of the chapter the important features and findings of the re-

search are discussed. Common outcomes and differences in the outcomes are iden-

tified. The chapter concludes by raising four issues that warrant attention in the field

of metacognition and reading comprehension. Reference is made to possible future

research studies and to the need to develop effective and responsive instruction in

reading comprehension for all students.

1 Metacognition

John Favell (1976, 1979a, b) and Ann Brown (1978) undertook the earliest work on

metacognition in the 1970s. Their theoretical and empirical research provided

understandings about learners reflective processes and gave insights into the ways in

which individuals knowledge about their cognition impacted on their self-regulation

in various aspects of development and learning. Since that time many different theo-

retical approaches to learning and development from information processing mo-

dels, to Vygotskian, socio-cultural or situated learning models, to socio-critical mo-

delshave influenced the way in which metacognition and reading comprehension

have been investigated (e.g., the Good Strategy User Model proposed in Pressley,Borkowski & Schneider, 1987, 1989; Zimmermans Self-Regulation Model, 1990).

Despite the various theoretical perspectives, from these earliest times, a common

understanding of metacognition is that it is comprised of two major components:

knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition. An individuals knowledge

about cognition is referred to as metacognitive knowledge. Flavell (1979b) argued

that metacognitive knowledge consists of knowledge of self, knowledge of aspects of

the task, and knowledge of strategy use. Self-regulation refers to the actions used to

achieve an individuals goals in learning and the acquisition of expertise in a domain.

It comprises both metacognitive monitoring and control. Metacognitive monitoring

refers to the assessment or evaluation of the ongoing or current state of a particular

cognitive activity, while metacognitive control refers to the regulation of ongoingcognitive activity (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009). The self-regulation component of

metacognition involves cognitive activities such as planning, checking, evaluating

and testing and revising strategies. Pressley, Forrest-Pressley, Elliott-Faust and Miller

(1985) have argued metacognitive knowledge is potentially conscious and

controllable (p. 4).

In the theoretical literature, metacognition has also been associated with the self-

system (Borkowski, 1992; Borkowski, Day, Saenz, Dietmeyer, Estrada & Grote-

luschen, 1992), which incorporates a number of motivational and affective aspects of

cognition. Many theories and models of metacognition suggest that the application of

knowledge about one's own cognitive processes and the regulation of these processes


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The Role of Metacognition in Reading Comprehension 279

are highly influenced by ones motivations, goals, perceptions of ability, attributions,

and beliefs, as well as the context, such as social and cultural norms (Borkowski,

Carr & Pressley, 1987; Borkowski, et al., 1992; Paris & Winograd, 1990a; Schunk,1989).Brown (1978, 1987) also linked metacognition to the executive that predicts,

checks, monitors, reality tests, coordinates, and controls deliberate attempts to learn,

study, and solve problems. The constraints on the length of this chapter prevent

further detailed discussion of the aspects of motivation, context and the executive,

nevertheless these factors are very important in obtaining a full understanding of

metacognition as they constitute influences on metacognition as well as being

influenced by metacognition (see Borkowski, Chan & Muthukrishna, 2000; Pintrich

& Zusho, 2002; Zimmerman, 2002).

2 Metacognition and Reading Comprehension

Much of the research on metacognition has been related to learning and achievement

in reading. Research in the fields of psychology and education point to the active and

strategic nature of reading (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1983; Pressley, 2002; Schneider

& Pressley, 1997). Self-regulated readers are actively involved in cognitive and

metacognitive activities before, during and after reading (Paris, Wasik & Turner,

1991). They engage in constructively responsive reading which involves reading

with a purpose and actively constructing meanings from text (Pressley & Afflerbach,

1995).

The goal of constructing meanings or comprehension lies at the heart of reading.Consistent with the active and strategic notions of reading, reading comprehension is

a complex and multifaceted ability that involvesthe readers orchestration of a num-

ber of skills and strategies when thoughtfully and critically interacting with written

text. The knowledge, experiences and purpose of the reader, the content and features

of the text, and the situation or context of reading influence reading comprehension.

Specifically, reading comprehension is both the process and product of the ideas

represented in the text linked to the readers prior knowledge and experiences and the

mental representation in memory of the text (Kintsch, 1998). As might be anticipated

from the definition of metacognition, the metacognitive processes involved in read-

ing comprehension include metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive monitoring

and control. The next sections examine several studies that have investigated theseaspects of metacognition in reading comprehension over the past decades.

2.1 Metacognitive Knowledge and Reading Comprehension

In one of the first studies of metacognitive knowledge, Myers and Paris (1978) inter-

viewed 2nd and 6th graders to determine their knowledge about reading. The find-

ings indicated that 2nd graders were not sensitive to task dimensions (p. 688) and

viewed reading as a process of decoding rather than as a process of comprehending.

In addition these younger readers did not recognize the need to invoke special stra -


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tegies for different materials and goals and they reported few strategies or reasons

for checking their own understanding (p. 688). Such differences in younger and

older readers have been found in many subsequent studies, with improvements inknowledge about person, tasks and strategy variables as a function of age (Clay,

1973; Kuhn, 2000; Lomax & McGee, 1987; Weinert & Schneider, 1999). For ex-

ample, Lomax and McGee (1987) examined the awareness of different aspects of

reading in children from 3 to 7 years of age. The researchers found a significant in-

crease in metacognitive awareness in children between the ages of three and four

years which is a time when many children may be exposed to print and books. Ne-

vertheless many children will still lack print awareness when they arrive at school.

For example, Clay (1973) noted the lack of print awareness and awareness of the

purposes of print in beginning readers, who failed to understand that the print, and

not the pictures, told the story.

Comparisons of good and poor readers also revealed differences in metacognitiveknowledge about reading and comprehension. For example, the Myers and Paris

study (1978) found that when 6th Grade good and poor readers were compared, the

poor comprehenders had less knowledge about different monitoring and comprehen-

sion strategies. Paris and Jacobs (1984) also found that knowledge about the purpose

of reading and knowledge about the information provided by different features of the

text were related to students comprehension abilities. Specifically, in comparison to

good comprehenders, they found that poor comprehenders were less able to identify

a meaning-related purpose for reading and were less able explain the information

embedded in text features.

In the 1980s Garner (1981, 1987) also undertook important studies related to me-

tacognitive knowledge and reading. Two other classic studies of metacognitive

knowledge by Garner and her colleagues investigated good and poor reader differ-

ences. These researchers found that poor readers were less knowledgeable than good

readers about reading and poor readers often failed to realize that they had not under-

stood the text (Garner & Kraus, 1981-1982; Garner & Reis, 1981).

Some studies have investigated aspects of metacognitive knowledge and compre-

hension and self-regulation. Paris and van Kraayenoord (1998) assessed 158 Aus-

tralian students, who were in Years 1 to 4, on a variety of measures of metacognitive

awareness and use of strategies, reading comprehension, and the construction of

meaning while listening (K-Grade 1) or reading (2nd and 3rd Grade). The children

were then assessed again two years later. The results indicted that metacognitiveawareness correlated with the students age and reading comprehension in Years 3

and 4. After two years metacognitive awareness correlated with teachers ratings of

the Year 1 and 2 students reading comprehension and motivation, while for the Year

3 and 4 students metacognitive awareness also correlated with reading comprehen-

sion, teachers ratings and metacognitive awareness scores from two years earlier.

In a study of German students in Grades 3 and 4, van Kraayenoord and Schneider

(1999) examined the roles of declarative metamemory, reading self-concept, and

interest in reading on reading achievement (specifically, comprehension and teacher

ratings of reading). Significant correlations between metacognitive and motivational

variables were found, and both these sets of variables correlated with decoding and

comprehension. Causal modelling indicated that metacognition had a direct effect on


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reading comprehension, and motivation had an indirect effect via decoding and meta-

cognition. This finding was replicated on the same sample four years later (Roeschl-

Heils, Schneider & van Kraayenoord, 2003). It indicates the stability of relationshipsamongst metacognitive knowledge, comprehension and motivation in the absence of

intervention (Baker & Beall, 2009).

Van Kraayenoord, Beinicke, Schlagmller and Schneider (under review) exam-

ined the performance in metacognitive knowledge, motivation, decoding and reading

achievement (that is, reading comprehension) of Grade 3 and 4 German and Austral-

ian students. The results revealed that metacognitive knowledge had the greatest in-

fluence on reading achievement in the German sample, while decoding had the

greatest influence on reading achievement in the Australian sample. When the data

were modelled, the main differences amongst the variables in relationship to reading

achievement in the two samples concerned a stronger relationship between meta-

cognitive knowledge and reading achievement in the German sample, and a strongerrelationship between decoding ability and reading achievement in the Australian

sample. The researchers suggested that the use of different orthographies might ex-

plain the findings.

Artelt, Schiefele and Schneider (2001) investigated several variables thought to

predict reading comprehension amongst secondary school students. In their study

involving 600 German high school students, structural equation modelling was used

to examine the contribution of the amount of reading, word reading and meta-

cognitive strategy knowledge on text comprehension. Artelt, et al. found that all three

factors had significant independent effects on comprehension, leading the authors to

support conceptualizations of reading comprehension as involving multiple variables

with metacognitive strategy knowledge as a salient factor. In another German study,

Neuenhaus, Lingel, Schneider and Artelt (2009) investigated if and to what extent the

metacognitive knowledge of fifth graders is a domain-specific or a domain-general

construct. They also examined the relationship between aspects of metacognitive

knowledge about text comprehension, English and Mathematics and achievement in

subject domains of English, Mathematics and English as a foreign language (EFL).

The results indicated that metacognitive knowledge of these fifth graders was strong-

ly domain-specific, rather than domain-general, and that the metacognitive knowl-

edge was also related to achievement in the particular domains.

In the next section studies of the monitoring and control aspects are described.

2.2 Metacognitive Monitoring and Control and Reading Comprehension

Metacognitive monitoring of comprehension or metacomprehension involves the

evaluation of text to determine that its content is consistent with ones prior knowl-

edge of a topic or domain (Schneider & Krkel, 1989) and of ones expectations of

the way language operates. Most studies of metacognitive monitoring have used the

error detection paradigm. Studies examining developmental differences in meta-

cognitive monitoring have found that people of all ages have difficulties accurately

judging their text learning and comprehension (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009, p.


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218), however, overall, younger readers have been found to be less able to monitor

their comprehension of text than older readers.

One of the first examples of age/grade-related differences in comprehensionmonitoring is found in the pioneering work of Markman (1977). Markmans research

on comprehension monitoring examined students abilities to detect inconsistencies

and errors in verbal instructions. For example, Markman (1977) found that 3rd gra-

ders were more proficient at detecting omissions in a set of verbal instructions than

1st graders. Markman (1979) also investigated 3rd and 6th graders awareness of

comprehension failure in listening. The study found about 40 to 50 percent of the

students did not notice the explicit inconsistencies in the material and almost 100

percent of the students were oblivious to the implicit inconsistencies. No significant

difference was found between the 3rd and 6th graders. However, when the students

were pre-warned that there were inconsistencies in the verbal material then the 6th

graders, but not the 3rd graders, detected a greater number of inconsistencies. Thus,after the provision of a prompt or cue related to the errors, the older students ap-

peared to be able to monitor their understanding to a greater extent than the younger

students.

Later studies of comprehension monitoringthis time in readingalso found that

readers were relatively poor at judging their own levels of comprehension (Baker,

1985; Cavanaugh & Perlmutter, 1982; Pressley & Ghatala, 1990). For example,

Baker (1985) found that beginning readers failed to monitor their comprehension,

omitted words, and guessed or made up interpretations of text, rather than re-reading

and fixing-up comprehension difficulties. There have been many other studies across

the decades that have examined students abilities to monitor their comprehension

and/or to detect and resolve errors and anomalies in text (August, Flavell & Clift,

1984; Brown, Armbruster & Baker, 1986; Ehrlich, 1996; Flavell, 1979b; Garner,

1981; Paris & Myers, 1981; Paris & Winograd, 1990b; Zabrucky & Moore, 1989).

Consistently, age and ability differences have been noted. Specifically, younger

readers and poorer readers failed to monitor their comprehension or failed to report

their lack of understanding of the text.

One group of researchers that has undertaken systematic research into the causal

links between comprehension monitoring (and other variables) and reading compre-

hension has been led by British researchers, Cain and Oakhill (Cain & Oakhill, 1996;

Cain, Oakhill & Bryant, 2004; Oakhill & Cain, 2003, Yuill & Oakhill, 1991). In one

of their studies Oakhill, Cain and Bryant (2003) assessed comprehension monitoringof students at 7 and 8 years of age and then again when they were 8 and 9 years old.

These researchers found that metacognitive monitoring, text integration, and working

memory accounted for a significant portion of the variance in reading comprehend-

sion. Similarly, in the Cain, Oakhill and Bryant (2004) study of 102 7 and 8 year old

students, comprehension monitoring (and inference making) independently contri-

buted unique variance to comprehension after removing the effects of decoding,

language, and working memory. Furthermore, in another study, Oakhill, Hartt and

Samols (2005) reported good comprehenders displayed greater proficiency in de-

tecting anomalies across paragraphs, after vocabulary and decoding differences had

been controlled. Important in this study was the finding that these difficulties were

more pronounced when the anomalous pieces of information were nonadjacent a


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finding also noted in an earlier study (Yuill, Oakhill & Parkin, 1989). Thus these re-

searchers have consistently shown the difficulties that students have with compre-

hension monitoring and the effects on comprehension, even when other influencesare controlled.

Over the years many hypotheses have been derived about why readers fail to

detect errors and have difficulties with monitoring their comprehension. For exam-

ple, in explaining her 1985 study findings related to why readers did not report the

inconsistencies or errors, Baker suggested that these readers believed that the texts

were accurate, organised and coherent, and furthermore these readers did not wish to

admit to their difficulties with comprehension. In addition, other authors (e.g.,

Johnston & Afflerbach, 1985; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992) have suggested that the

lack of comprehension monitoring may be due to readers focus on low levels of pro-

cessing of text such as on decoding the words or operating at the sentence level,

rather than at the text level. However, it is argued here that it is likely that many ofthese factors in combination contribute to younger and poorer readers failure to

monitor their comprehension and to their failure to report on their lack of under-

standing of text.

With respect to investigations of metacognitive control of reading comprehension

researchers have examined the strategies that readers use before, during and after

reading. Again amongst these studies using age and good/poor reader comparison de-

signs are common. For example, Baker and Brown (1984) studied good and poor 4th

and 6th Grade readers strategy use. They found that the good readers were aware of

when they did or did not comprehend the text. The poor readers were less aware of

the importance of meaning in comprehending text and focused on decoding to the

detriment of comprehension. These authors also found that the good readers used a

number of metacognitive strategies during reading that assisted them to comprehend.

For example, the good readers, who were aware when they did and did not under-

stand the text, used fix-up strategies when comprehension broke down. Pressley and

Afflerbach (1995) also reported that good readers employed multiple strategies be-

fore, during and after reading, and often used them in a coordinated manner. These

strategies included predicting upcoming text content before reading, using question-

ning, creating mental images during reading, and summarizing following reading.

Other studies have also noted that poor comprehenders failed to use reading strate-

gies (e.g., Brown, Armbruster & Baker, 1986), while some studies have found that

poor comprehenders have greater difficulty in adjusting strategy use according to textfeatures (e.g., Palincsar & Brown, 1984).

Cesare Cornoldi, an Italian researcher, has led a research group that has under-

taken several studies related to monitoring and control of reading comprehension.

For example, in one longitudinal study, Cornoldi, De Beni, and Pazzaglia (1996) ex-

amined the cognitive and metacognitive profiles of groups of good and poor compre-

henders in the Italian school system. The researchers compared performance on

learning measures (e.g., reading comprehension), cognitive measures (e.g., working

memory) and metacognitive abilities related to reading comprehension (e.g., knowl-

edge of reading goals, strategy use). When looking across the poor comprehenders as

a group the researchers found considerable heterogeneity. Closer inspection of indivi-

dual profiles indicated that failure to comprehend typically implied lower meta-


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cognitive control of reading comprehension, although in some cases poor compre-

hension was related to poor strategy use (or poor listening comprehension). There-

fore, Cornoldi et al. suggested that there were multiple, higher order variables thatwere prerequisites to and facilitators of reading comprehension. They suggested that

poor performance on cognitive and metacognitive tasks could lead to poor reading

comprehension, and conversely poor reading comprehension could lead to difficult-

ties in cognitive and metacognitive abilities. In a more recent study from researchers

in the same group, Meneghetti, Carretti and De Beni (2006) investigated the role of

various abilities related to reading comprehension. In their study of 184 Italian

students from 9 to 13 years of age they found that two latent factors, involving basic

and complex abilities, best accounted for reading comprehension performance from

three models that were tested. The basic abilities included identification of main

and secondary characters of a text and the temporal and causal structure of a text,

while the more complex abilities included those that referred to aspects of meta-cognitive knowledge and control. These more complex metacognitive competencies

included the ability to identify relevant from irrelevant information, to modify read-

ing strategies according to the different text types, and to recognize words that were

incongruent with text meaning. The researchers argued that the latter aspects of

reading comprehension structure the abilities of the mental model representation

that involve active constructive processing, elaboration or efforts to understand (p.

299).

Finally, a more recent study conducted over a full school year documented

students metacognitive knowledge, strategy use and comprehension based on stu-

dents talk, interviews, analyses of their oral reading and their retellings. This study

by Kragler and Martin (2009) found that the six low, average and above-average 1st

Grade readers all used a large range of different strategies to understand text. In ad-

dition, in this sample, strategy use was not affected by reading level, that is, all of the

readers used strategies regardless of reading ability. The findings also indicated that

the actual strategy use was more pervasive than five of the six students reported us-

ing. In discussing the results the authors pointed to the role of language in devel-

oping the students reading comprehension. They argued that the students under-

standing of language (that is, the talk about text) meant that the students paid in-

creased attention to their use of strategies and increasingly became more self-regu-

lated. (Readers are also directed to reviews of studies of monitoring and control of

reading and reading comprehension in Israel, Block, Bauserman & Kinnucan-Welsch, 2005.)

3 The Instruction of Metacognitive and Comprehension-Related

Strategies

In order to improve the metacognitive knowledge, monitoring and control of all

readers and so create active, strategic and proficient comprehenders, many re-

searchers and authors have argued that these metacognitive processes should be

taught. Therefore, this section reviews some of the literature that has investigated the


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instruction provided to develop students metacognition and reading comprehension.

Much of this research has focused on the teaching of metacognitive and comprehen-

sion-related strategies and the efficacy of such teaching. The argument for the teach-ing of strategies suggests that readers metacognitive knowledge is associated with

their schema and prior knowledge (Pressley, Borkowski & Schneider, 1987). This, in

turn, is related to their comprehension monitoring (Paris, Lipson & Wixson) and to

the use of comprehension strategies (Carr, Kurtz, Schneider, Turner & Borkowski,

1989; Pressley, Borkowski & Schneider, 1987), which in turn is associated with

comprehension.

Many researchers have advocated for the teaching of strategies (e.g., Baker; 2002;

Paris, Wasik & Turner, 1991; Pressley, 2000; Pressley, Forrest-Pressley, Elliott-Faust

& Miller, 1985). In addition several recent research reports published in the United

States have called for increased teaching of key cognitive strategies such as pre-

dicting, questioning, summarizing and clarifying (National Reading Panel, 2000;RAND Reading Study Group, 2002; Snow, Burns &Griffin, 1998).

These reports and other documents synthesize the considerable empirical research

evidence that supports the instruction of strategies and that indicates that such in-

struction improves reading comprehension (Bereiter & Bird, 1985; Cross & Paris,

1988; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2005; King & Rosenshine, 1993; Palincsar & Brown, 1984;

Paris & Oka, 1986). While some of this evidence suggests that strategy instruction

enhances the reading comprehension of both good and poor readers, as is shown

below, this is not always the case and there is trend now amongst researchers to argue

that metacognitive and comprehension-related strategy instruction may be more rele-

vant to and effective with those struggling with reading.

An examination of research syntheses and studies of instructional programs and

approaches demonstrates that many different strategies have been suggested as im-

portant to the development of reading comprehension. However, typically the strate-

gies are ones that aim to foster, monitor and/or retain comprehension and learning

from text. For example, Brown (1980) referred to strategies such as: clarifying the

purposes of reading; identifying the important elements of the message; focussing on

the main content; monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether comprehension

is occurring; reviewing and self-questioning to determine whether goals are being

achieved; making corrections when comprehension failures are detected; and recov-

ering from disruptions and distractions. Similarly, Pressley (2000, 2002) referred to:

activating background or prior knowledge, making predictions; generating questionsduring reading; constructing mental images that represent the meanings of text;

identifying important information; making links between ideas in the text; summa-

rising; monitoring understanding; and fixing up difficulties when they occur.

The research has indicated, however, that the focus of instruction should not be on

single or individual strategies but on the teaching of multiple strategies so that stu-

dents build up a repertoire of strategies and that they learn to use the ones that are

most appropriate to the comprehension situation (Pressley, Wharton-McDonald,

Mistretta-Hampston & Echevarria, 1998). Indeed, in a recent meta-analysis, Gajria,

Jitendra, Sood and Sacks (2007) examined instructional studies that involved the

teaching of students with learning disabilities in the use of content enhancement, or

single cognitive and multiple cognitive strategies and their effect on the compre-


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hension of expository text. With reference here only to the studies of strategy in-

struction, the meta-analysis found support for the systematic instruction of single

strategies, however, those studies that involved direct instruction of multiple strate-gies indicated larger effect sizes when compared to the single strategy studies. Thus

the instruction of multiple strategies is advocated. However Pressley (2000) cau-

tioned against teaching strings of strategies and instead argued for the teaching of a

small repertoire of strategies. The studies describing the various programs and ap-

proaches follow.

3.1 Informed Strategies for Learning

Informed Strategies Instruction (ISL: Paris, Cross & Lipson, 1984; Paris & Jacobs,

1984) was designed to stimulate greater awareness of declarative, procedural, andconditional knowledge, while also teaching children how to evaluate, plan and regu-

late their own comprehension in strategic ways (Cross & Paris, 1988, p. 133). The

instructional component of ISL involves modelling the strategies and discussion of

the reasons for their use, guided practice and independent implementation of the stra-

tegies. The teachers and peers provide feedback. In their intervention study, Paris and

Jacobs (1984) found significant correlations between reading awareness and compre-

hension for both 3rd and 5th graders, with the students in the ISL group improving

more than the control group from pre-to post test on assessments of reading aware-

ness and strategic reading. In another study, Paris, Cross and Lipson (1984) investi-

gated 3rd and 5th graders change in awareness of strategies and the value of using

strategies as a result of ISL. The specific strategies taught as part of ISL in this studywere: understanding the purposes of reading, activating background knowledge, allo-

cating attention to the main ideas, evaluating critically, monitoring comprehension

and making inferences. In a control group-designed study, performance gains were

larger on cloze and error detection tasks for the ISL group. Thus ISL was effective in

enhancing metacognitive knowledge and improving the comprehension monitoring

of these students. Paris and Oka (1986) also investigated readers use of reading com-

prehension strategies by teaching them to be metacognitive about their reading. The

findings indicated that the students who used ISL improved their reading compre-

hension. Interestingly, readers at all skill levels were assisted by the intervention.

Finally, Cross and Paris (1988), in another study of 3rd and 5th graders, also used

ISL to teach comprehension strategies. However in contrast to the Paris and Okastudy, this study did not find that ISL had a significant effect on all readers. Instead

the researchers found that ISL had the greatest impact on the poor readers in the

study.

From these studies of ISL it is clear to see that the focus on the declarative,

procedural and conditional knowledge aspects about reading and on the teaching of

relevant strategies increased students reading comprehension and was particularly

valuable in assisting poor readers to improve their comprehension.


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3.2 Reciprocal Teaching

At the same time as Paris and his colleagues were developing ISL, another group ofresearchers was undertaking research on a different metacognitive approach to read-

ing. Reciprocal Teaching (RT: Palincsar, 1986; Palincsar & Brown, 1984) was de-

signed to foster reading comprehension and to teach students to monitor their com-

prehension. RT consists of the teaching of four strategies that can be used to com-

prehend text predicting, questioning, summarising, and clarifying. Instruction ini-

tially involves teacher explanation and modelling of the strategies. Then together the

teacher and students create a discussion about how, when and why these strategies

should be used. Over time the teacher guides and supports the students in the appli-

cation of the strategies and gradually passes over more responsibility to them with

the students acting as the teacher as they develop the ability to perform the strategies

on their own. One of the most well known studies of RT is Palincsar and Brown(1984) that comprised two investigations. In the first, involving 7th graders, the

teacher initially discussed the four strategies and showed how they should be used.

Then, working in peer teaching groups, the students learned how to use the strategies

until independence. The comprehension performance of this group was then com-

pared to the performances of another intervention group and two non-intervention

groups. The study demonstrated positive effects for the students involved in RT on

strategy use and in comprehension. The second investigation replicated the first ex-

cept it was undertaken in a regular classroom setting using the students usual reading

groups. As with the first investigation students in the RT group outperformed the

other students.

Researchers in many other countries have also examined the use of RT to improvereading comprehension. For example, in a recent German study, Sprer and Seuring

(2009) undertook an intervention involving RT and cognitive and metacognitive acti-

vities in order to enhance the reading comprehension of 3rd to 6th graders. The re-

searchers also examined which strategies mediated the intervention effects on the

comprehension. The students were first taught the RT strategies of summarizing,

questioning, clarifying, and predicting. Then they practiced the strategies in peer-

tutored pairs (RT pairs), in small groups (RT groups) or in instructor-guided groups

(without RT). The results indicated that students who practiced in RT small groups

outperformed students in the instructor-guided groups and the traditional instruction

groups as assessed on a standardized reading comprehension measure. The regres-

sion analyses indicated that summarizing was the only strategy that had a significant

effect on change in reading comprehension. As a consequence of their findings the

researchers suggested that the use of multiple strategies of RT is valuable in teaching

comprehension, as is the use of small groups in metacognitive instruction.

The efficacy of RT has been demonstrated in a meta-analysis of 10 RT studies that

resulted in a mean effect size of .71 (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). Many other re-

searchers have gone on to employ RT in interventions with various types of learners

and today it is one of the one of the most often cited approaches to strategy in-

struction of reading comprehension (e.g., Hacker & Tenent, 2002; Le Fevre, Moore

& Wilkinson 2003). In school settings it has been of particular interest to teachers


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working with middle and secondary school students and is sometimes combined with

other approaches such as direct explanation of strategies (e.g., Alfassi, 2004).

3.3 The Direct Explanation of Strategies

Duffy and his colleagues did not label their approach with a particular name, how-

ever their research suggested that the key instructional component of strategy in-

struction should be the direct explanation of strategies (Duffy, 2002; Duffy &

Roehler, 1989; Duffy, Roehler & Herrmann, 1988). Duffys research has been very

influential in the field of strategy instruction and indeed the direct explanation of

strategies has become a major component of many approaches to the teaching of

strategies. Two of Duffys earliest studies illustrate the use of direct explanation and

point to its effectiveness. Duffy et al. (1986) involved 5th Grade teachers and theirstudents who were poor readers (i.e., low reading group). The teachers explicitly dis-

cussed the cognitive processes and strategies involved in comprehension with their

students, focusing on the specific strategies to be learned as well as why they were

important, and how and when they should be used. In a similar study by Duffy et al.

(1987), 3rd Grade teachers and their students who were poor readers were involved.

In both studies the teachers who were provided with training in the use of direct ex-

planation were compared with a no training control group. The results of both studies

indicated the effectiveness of the training, with the trained teachers being more ex-

plicit in their teaching and the students of these teachers improving in their aware-

ness of the need for strategy use and in their metacognitive awareness of strategies.

Students in the 1987 study also performed better than the control students when read-ing achievement was assessed at post-test and at follow-up after five months.

The research of Duffy and his colleagues demonstrated the power of using direct

explanation of strategies in teaching students to become better comprehenders. The

value of direct explanation has been picked up in the approach known as Trans-

actional Strategies Instruction.

3.4 Transactional Strategies Instruction

Transactional Strategies Instruction (TSI: Pressley, 2002; Pressley et al. 1992;

Schuder, 1993; Symons, Snyder, Cariglia-Bull & Pressley, 1989) promotes the ideathat students should develop as flexible strategy users and therefore they should be

taught a variety of strategies to enhance reading comprehension. No specific strate-

gies have been endorsed in TSI, but the TSI research has involved teaching students

to make links with prior knowledge, make and confirm predictions, summarize, and

re-read as they work to understand and interpret texts. Massey (2009) has pointed out

though sharing some commonalities with RT, the researchers differentiated TSI

from RT in several ways, including the use of more direct explanation of compre-

hension strategies, longer times given for instruction and introducing new strategies,

and more focus on motivation of students (p. 396).

In TSI the teacher works with students at the whole class level and in small

groups. Strategies are directly explained and modelled with classroom dialogue being


13/28


used to develop strategy use. The students then practice the strategies under teacher

guidance and eventually the students use the strategies independently. The transac-

tions occur between teachers and students, students and students, and students andtexts (El-Dinary, 2002).

Several studies of TSI have demonstrated the efficacy of this approach in im-

proving reading comprehension with a variety of readers (Schuder, 1993). For ex-

ample, Collins (1991) found that Grade 5 and 6 students who had received TSI

showed more significant improvement from pre- to post-test than students not receiv-

ing the instruction. In another study, Anderson (1992) found poor achieving students

in Grades 6 to 11 who received TSI made greater gains in comprehension than stu-

dents in classrooms in which TSI had not been taught. Studies using this approach

have also demonstrated large effects on comprehension (Brown, Pressley, Van Meter

& Schuder, 1996). The research has also demonstrated that TSI not only positively

influenced comprehension but also influenced students overall perceptions of them-selves as readers (Casteel, Isom & Jordan, 2000).

These studies have indicated that TSI helps students transact with text, the teacher

and their peers. It focuses on the metacognitive processes of comprehension by direct

explanation, modelling and coaching by the teacher before the students gradually

assume responsibility for the teaching and begin to monitor and control their compre-

hension. Across several years studies have indicated that TSI is an efficacious and

valuable approach to improving students reading comprehension and their self-per-

ception as readers.

3.5 Concept Orientated Reading Instruction

Concept Orientated Reading Instruction (CORI: Guthrie, Anderson, Alao & Rinehart,

1999; Guthrie et al., 1996; Guthrie, Wigfield & Perencevich, 2004) can be distin-

guished from the other programs and approaches reviewed here in that it has a very

strong focus on motivation and very deliberately combines strategy instruction and

motivational aspects of learning in a specific content domain. Operating in classroom

contexts of science learning CORI focuses on developing engaged reading. It is

concerned with the teaching of reading strategies, scientific concepts, inquiry skills,

and the development of intrinsic motivation in reading. Specifically, CORI promotes

instruction that includes opportunities for the students to: engage with real-world

topics to achieve content goals, read frequently on topics of their interest, use textscomprising a variety of genres, participate in hands-on activities, work collabora-

tively, and choose amongst activities and texts. The strategy instruction focuses on

the activation of prior knowledge, questioning, seeking information, summarizing,

and displaying information graphically (Guthrie et al., 1999; Guthrie et al., 2004).

The students work in small groups and as individuals as they apply the multiple stra-

tegies they have learned in various reading and writing activities. Students build

metacognitive knowledge as they actively choose strategies, monitor their compre-

hension, and integrate information (Baker & Beall, 2009).

In a study that examined the efficacy of CORI, Guthrie et al. (1998) compared

four 3rd and 5th Grade classrooms that had been exposed to CORI instruction with


14/28


classrooms offering science instruction using basal readers. The results indicated that

after prior knowledge had been controlled, students in the CORI classrooms outper-

formed the students in the control classrooms in learning and using the strategies thathad been taught. The CORI students also improved their use of strategies, their con-

ceptual learning in science and the transfer of this learning.

To determine whether or not motivation was an essential part of CORI, Guthrie et

al. (2004) undertook two studies. The outcomes of these studies showed that when

performance in reading comprehension, cognitive strategies and motivation were

compared between students who had been exposed to CORI and those who had

received only Strategy Instruction (that is, no motivational component), the former

groups scored higher than the Strategy Instruction-only groups on all measures. Thus

the researchers have argued that the motivational aspect of learning is a necessary

and essential part of CORI.

Engagement in reading and learning in science through self-regulation is prior-itized in the CORI program. Studies have indicated that the teaching of reading stra-

tegies alongside the promotion of students motivation to read has resulted in i m-

proved comprehension. The studies suggested that the motivational aspects of CORI

added to the strategy instruction in ways that made a difference to student engage-

ment and hence to reading comprehension.

3.6 Collaborative Strategic Reading

Vaughn and Klingner and colleagues (CSR: Kim, Vaughn, Klingner, Woodruff,

Reutebuch & Kouzekanani, 2006; Klingner, Vaughn & Schumm, 1998; Klingner,Vaughn, Arguelles, Hughes & Leftwich, 2004) developed Collaborative Strategic

Reading (CSR) to teach multiple comprehension strategies alongside collaborative

learning. Based on the RT paradigm, in CSR students learn to preview the text (i.e.,

preview), monitor comprehension and use fix up strategies (i.e., click and

clunk), identify the main ideas by restating them (i.e., get the gist), and summa-

rize the text (i.e., wrap up). First, the teacher conducts instruction of the strategies

at the whole class level and then small group settings are used as students apply the

strategies to their texts. Using the structure from collaborative learning each student

in the group is assigned a particular role and then takes it in turn to teach one of the

strategies. Over time each student learns to teach and apply each strategy.

In Klingner, Vaughn and Schumm (1998) researchers taught CSR to 4th Gradestudents using a social studies text. These students achievement was compared to the

achievement of students in two control classrooms, where the students had been

offered traditional lessons using the same text. Researchers also taught these class-

rooms. The results indicated that, when compared to the students in the control class-

rooms, students in the CSR classrooms improved in comprehension, but they did not

improve in content knowledge, where equal improvement was shown.

Klingner, Vaughn, Arguelles, Hughes and Leftwich (2004) taught 10 classroom

teachers in CSR. These teachers taught the CSR strategies to their 4th Grade stu-

dents, including 29 with learning disabilities. Students in a control group received

traditional instruction in the same content. The results indicated that the CSR stu-


15/28


dents made greater gains in comprehension than the students in the control class-

rooms, although only the high and average achieving students improved at statisti-

cally significant levels.Finally, in a recent study Kim, Vaughn, Klingner, Woodruff, Reutebuch and

Kouzekanani (2006) investigated the efficacy of Computer-Assisted Collaborative

Strategic Reading (CACSR) with middle school students with learning disabilities.

Students who used CACSR improved their reading comprehension more than stu-

dents who used CSR, although gains on a comprehension test were modest.

The results of these studies demonstrate the value of CSR in enhancing students

reading comprehension and comprehension monitoring of expository texts. The com-

puter program CASR also shows promise in improving comprehension.

3.7 Peer Assisted Learning Strategies

In Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS: Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons,

1997; Mathes, Fuchs, Fuchs, Henley & Sanders, 1994) student pairs, using verbally

presented material, worked together on various activities to address issues such as

comprehension. As a version of Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT: Delquadri, Green-

wood, Whorton, Carta & Hall, 1986; Greenwood, Delquadri & Hall, 1989), PALS

focuses on developing students decoding and comprehension. The decoding-focused

component of PALS concentrates on the development of sounds and words, while the

comprehension component, known as story sharing, focuses on the making of pre-

dictions, oral reading, and comprehension though retelling. In delivering the instruct-

tion the teacher uses a script so that students become familiar with standard pro-cedures. A sequence of instructional steps is always followed. It comprises teacher-

directed modelling of the code-focused activities, then student practice of these

activities, followed by pair or partner work involving the story reading. The student

pairs alternate roles as coach and reader.

Much of the efficacy research on PALS has been conducted with students with

learning disabilities (e.g., Fuchs & Fuchs, l998; Fuchs, Fuchs & Burish, 2000),

however it has also been shown to be effective with other students, such as with

English Language Learners (Calhoon, Al Otaiba, Cihak, King & Avalos, 2007;

Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes & Simmons, 1997).

In a study, conducted in Israel, Michalsky, Mevarech and Haibi (2009) provided

three groups of Grade 4 students with PALS metacognitive instruction. The groupswere offered strategy instruction before, or during, or after reading science texts. A

control group did not receive an intervention. The results indicated that all the inter-

vention groups benefited from reading the scientific texts embedded within the meta-

cognitive instruction. In particular, those students who received metacognitive in-

struction after reading the scientific texts performed better on domain-specific

knowledge, scientific reading, and metacognitive awareness measures. In a related

study Mevarech and Michalsky (2009) examined the effects of different kinds of

metacognitive instruction (PALS) on scientific reading of the higher and lower

achieving students in the 2009 sample. The analyses showed no significant differen-

ces as a result of the metacognitive instruction associated with before, during or after


16/28


reading of scientific texts for the higher achievers, however the lower achievers who

received metacognitive instruction in the after reading condition significantly

outperformed their peers in the before reading condition, who in turn significantlyoutperformed those in the during reading condition. The students who received no

metacognitive instruction achieved the lowest mean scores. The researchers also

demonstrated that the higher and lower achievers used different strategies and

attended to different aspects of the scientific texts. Specifically the researchers indi-

cated that the higher achievers focused on comprehending the scientific phenomenon

and on making links between the phenomena described in the texts and their previous

knowledge, while the lower achievers mainly focused on inquiry strategies and re-

flective processes.

These studies of PALS demonstrate its value in various contexts and with different

groups of learners. Its use of modelling of strategies, peer-work, and its focus on both

decoding and comprehension mean that it has received considerable attention in theresearch literature including in countries outside the United States (see also Rohr-

beck, Ginsburg-Block, Fantuzzo & Miller, 2003 for a meta-analytic review.)

4 Discussion of the Reviewed Research

To this point, this chapter has documented some of the most important and classic

studies related to metacognition and reading comprehension, as well as some of the

more recent studies from countries such as Italy, Israel, and Australia. While this

chapter provides a selective review, the studies have indicated how metacognitiveknowledge about reading and reading comprehension changes with age and ability.

Thus, it is clear that with development students become more aware of their own

thinking about themselves, the tasks and the strategies that are useful for reading and

that good comprehenders are more aware than poor comprehenders. The research has

also indicated that metacognitive knowledge is likely to be domain-specific, in that

students may have metacognitive knowledge in one particular area, but not in

another. Students may also be aware of several aspects of metacognitive knowledge,

but not be able to report them. There may be a number of reasons for these difficult-

ties. For example, language abilities may prevent some children from articulating

what they know. With respect to knowledge about strategies, it may also be the case

that students know of them, but may not know when to use them, especially in aparticular text and context. In addition, factors such as motivation and working

memory may mean that students fail to use strategies to regulate their reading com-

prehension.

The studies of metacognitive monitoring and control that have been reviewed here

have demonstrated the great variability in students abilities. With respect to monitor-

ing, the studies have highlighted the progressive nature of the development of moni-

toring and the use of strategies to understand text. Differences in good and poor

readers monitoring of reading comprehension were also apparent in a number of

these studies. They indicated that monitoring is influenced by a host of factors in-

cluding students prior knowledge, their perceptions of texts as accurate and co-


17/28


herent, their knowledge of language, their reluctance to admit to comprehension

problems, and a propensity to view reading as a decoding activity, especially in

young readers, those with difficulties in comprehension, and those with learning dis-abilities.

Age and ability differences were also found in the studies of control strategies.

Not all studies of the control aspects of reading comprehension were consistent in

their findings, but there was an overall consensus across the studies that good readers

had multiple strategies at their disposal and that these were accessed and used flex-

ibly. In contrast, poor readers had difficulties in adjusting strategies according to the

text, had less control of the strategies, and used the strategies less well when reading

text.

This review has also revealed that extensive research has been undertaken to teach

students to associate their metacognitive knowledge with particular monitoring and

control aspects of comprehension. Such studies are based on the view that studentswho are aware of their individual cognitive strengths and weaknesses are better at the

regulation necessary for text comprehension (Sperling, Howard, Staley & Dubois,

2004). The summary has also highlighted the considerable number of programs and

approaches that have demonstrated that reading comprehension can be improved by

teaching students to use metacognitive and comprehension-related strategies. These

studies have revealed that instruction in the strategies themselves and in their use is

highly effective at improving comprehension. There is evidence that such instruction

is efficacious for all readers, although some research has found that it may be more

effective for students who are struggling with reading for example, those who are

poor comprehenders or have learning disabilities.

While a great many strategies have been advocated, the most commonly taught

strategies that have strong empirical support are: making predictions, questioning,

summarizing and clarifying. While there is considerable evidence regarding the value

of teaching individual strategies, it is also clear that the teaching of multiple strate-

gies might be superior to the teaching of single strategies in developing reading com-

prehension. It is suggested that instruction in multiple strategies allows students to

develop a repertoire that they can then learn to use flexibly according to the text type,

task, and context.

The studies reviewed here also indicated that teachers and students have specific

roles in the instruction of strategies and that they engage in several essential prac-

tices. These roles and practices appear to be common to most of the programs andapproaches. Specifically, the teacher provides explicit explanation, demonstrates the

strategies, and provides reasons related to when, where, how, and why the strategies

should be used. Following the teacher explanation and modelling, the students en-

gage in roles that involve discussion and the practice of the strategies. The students

often work in small groups and/or pairs. As the students practice the strategies, their

learning is scaffolded through the provision of frequent feedback from either the

teacher and/or their peers. Gradually over time the students move towards the inde-

pendent use of the strategies. (The readers attention is also drawn to reviews of com-

prehension, comprehension monitoring and strategy instruction in Israel & Duffy,

2009 and in McNamara, 2007).


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5 Future Considerations

This review of selected studies of metacognition and reading comprehension pub-lished over more than three decades has indicated that the role of metacognition in

reading comprehension is an important one and what we know about this role has

made a valuable contribution to our knowledge about teaching reading comprehen-

sion in classrooms. However, there are several areas that deserve attention in future

studies of metacognition and reading comprehension and in light of societys goal for

all citizens to be literate.

First, there is the issue of our understanding of metacognition. Our understanding

or definition of metacognition influences the elements one investigates and how one

studies metacognition. Researchers who have used a socio-cognitive/socio-cultural

view have emphasised the social and cultural contexts in which metacognition is ac-

quired and through which it is changed (Schunk, 1989), while those who haveadopted a self-regulated learning perspective have focused more on the changes in

the deliberate and strategic control aspects of metacognition (Pintrich & Zusho,

2002). Furthermore, as indicated earlier, researchers such as Borkowski and col-

leagues have viewed metacognition from within a self-system perspective that con-

siders metacognition alongside cognitive and motivational elements of the learning

activity (Borkowski, Chan & Muthukrishna, 2000). The existence of studies reported

in this chapter that have taken a self-system view of metacognition and reading com-

prehension and other studies that have investigated motivational aspects alongside

metacognitive strategy learning suggest that researchers are adopting a multidimen-

sional view of metacognition that allows several cognitive, metacognitive and moti-

vational variables to be investigated in combination (see Baker & Beall, 2009).

Future studies of the contributions of different cognitive, metacognitive and

motivational factors and reading comprehension would be most useful in developing

richer and more complex understandings of what students need to know to become

proficient, strategic and engaged comprehenders of text.

Second, this review reveals that we have considerable knowledge about what

should be taught in relationship to metacognition and reading comprehension in

classrooms, as well as how students should be taught. Alongside the development of

conceptual knowledge, vocabulary, phonological awareness, decoding and the like,

students need to be taught strategies that will assist with the monitoring and control

aspects of comprehension. Indeed, as indicated earlier, Pressley (2000) has advocatedthat teachers should assist students in building a small repertoire of strategies. From

the research we also have information about the strategies that students use when

interacting with text that are the most salient for comprehension, such as summa-

rizing (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). In heeding this call to help learners create a

small repertoire of strategies, future research needs to confirm which (few) strategies

should be taught and in what combinations.

Third, the investigations of programs and approaches have also revealed that

metacognitive and comprehension-related strategy instruction must be combined

with effective teaching practices. Repeatedly the literature has indicated that effective

practices include direct explanation, collaborative discussions, modelling, and the

scaffolding of practice via feedback. Furthermore given the findings related to the


19/28


domain-specific nature of metacognitive knowledge and its relationship to reading

achievement we need to ensure that metacognitive and comprehension-related strate-

gy instruction is embedded within specific curricula or discipline areas. However,there are still matters related to instruction that require further research. For example,

it is still not clear exactly what it is about metacognitive and comprehension-related

strategy instruction that improves reading comprehension. In drawing on Ann

Browns (1992) original use and advocacy of design experiments it is suggested that

this methodology would allow researchers, including teacher-researchers, to under-

stand how, when, and why particular pedagogical practices work in classrooms in

which metacognitive and comprehension-related strategies are taught (Bell, 2004).

Fourth, the research evidence has indicated that increased attention in classrooms

to instruction in metacognitive knowledge, monitoring and control leads to improved

reading comprehension. However, such instruction in schools does not necessarily

lead to more equitable outcomes for all students. The performance gap in readingachievement between those who are achieving as expected and various other popula-

tions of students such as those living in poverty, second language learners, those with

learning disabilities and disabilities, and those who are disengaged from reading

means that these groups of students may well require different metacognitive and

comprehension-related instruction. In order to promote more equitable and socially

just outcomes our research questions related to these groups might be: how should

the instruction for these students vary so that it is more responsive to their individual

needs and what types of studies are needed to allow this research question to be

addressed?

In addition it is suggested that closing the reading achievement gap involves not

only closer calibration of teachers instruction to students needs but also ensuring

that appropriate and effective systemic and infrastructure responses are in place with-

in school jurisdictions. These responses include enhanced professional development

and increased teacher access to high quality materials and resources. Furthermore,

there is a pressing need to address long-standing issues related to the lack of access

and availability of educational opportunities and resources for many of these groups

of students, to tackle the issues of discrimination and prejudice, and to breakdown

the social, cultural, linguistic and economic barriers to educational achievement in

our communities.

6 Concluding Comment

In moving the field forward to improve the reading comprehension of all students we

can draw on and build on the strong legacy of research on the role of metacognition

in reading comprehension that has been reviewed in this chapter. There is also much

that researchers and educators can do now and in the future. The challenges are there

and the next steps are for us to take.


20/28


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