A metacognitive curriculum to promote children's reading and learning

Abstract

This paper summarizes some of the major findings from a research project at the University of Michigan on children's reading Comprehension. The basis for the research is the observation that many young or unskilled readers do not use erective strategies to roster comprehension. The instructional studies were designed to promote children's metacognition about reading by informing them how. when and why to use various comprehension strategies. Third-and fifth-grade students received periodic instruction in their classrooms during the year about strategies such as skimming. locating main ideas. making inferences. monitoring comprehension and summarizing information in texts. Their performance on a battery of tests administered before and after instruction was compared to children in other classes who received their customary reading instruction. Children who received the metacognitive curriculum increased their awareness about reading and their use of comprehension strategies. Although the instruction helped children with a wide range of reading abilities. metacognition about reading varies with age and ability. The implications of these findings for cognitive development and reading instruction are discussed.Academic learning often requires deliberate problem-solving behaviour such as selective attending, planning, remembering and self-monitoring. In order to orchestrate these cognitive strategies students need to observe and guide their own thinking to ensure that they are approaching designated goals. Because these thoughts serve an executive function for students' learning they have been labelled meracognition (Brown, Bransford. Ferrara, & Campione, 1983;Flavell, 1978). Children in elementary grades typically d o not use metacognition effectively to direct their own thinking. They are often unaware of the existence We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Institute of Education in the conduct of this research (Grants NIE 80-0148 and NIE 82-0019) and the cooperation of teachers and students in public schools in Ann Arbor, Farmington and Waterford. Michigan. This project was a team effort over many years and could not have been accomplished wiihout the help of Marjorie Lipson, and benefits of cognitive strategies required by academic tasks (Paris & Lindauer, 1982). Thus educational and instructional psychologists have tcrned their attention to what children understand about their own reading, writing, and thinking skills in order to promote children's learning.Reading is a particularly important ability because it is the vehicle for much of academic learning. Good readers make inferences while reading. pause to check their own understanding, summarize what they read and know how to resolve comprehension dificulties. Such strategies are essential for learning and studying. Students who cannot read effectively are at a disadvantage for learning science, social studies, mathematics and other content areas. The inability to read successfully has motivational as well as cognitive consequences. Students who...

Ways of reading: How knowledge and use of strategies are related to reading comprehension

“…If meta-cognitive de cits in reading regulation (and possibly knowledge about reading) are causally contributing to comprehension failure, training in such skills should improve reading comprehension. Previous studies have demonstrated that young children's knowledge about reading can be improved through instruction, but the bene ts do not readily transfer to standardized reading and comprehension tests (Paris & Jacobs, 1984;Paris, Saarnio & Cross, 1986). The lack of transfer may be taken as a sign that metacognitive skills are not that crucial for discourse-level comprehension; however training populations who have learning disabilities has met with more success (Lucangeli, Galderisi & Cornoldi, 1995).…”

“…If the relation between knowledge and comprehension skill is found to be a direct one, it would be bene cial to teach and practise the necessary meta-cognitive skills. Meta-cognitive knowledge and skills have been successfully taught to populations of normal children (Paris & Jacobs, 1984;Paris, Saarnio & Cross, 1986) and also those with learning disabilities (Lucangeli, Galderisi & Cornoldi, 1995), but knowledge increments have been modest and experimental groups do not demonstrate superior performance on standardized assessments of comprehension (Paris & Jacobs, 1984;Paris, Saarnio & Cross, 1986). Thus it is important to establish whether the posited relation between comprehension skill and reading knowledge is a direct one.…”

Metalearning and conceptual change

“…In the area of reading comprehension techniques involving reciprocal teaching, in which students take turns leading discussions on the meaning of text segments using activities of questioning, clarifying, summarizing and predicting, are reported by Brown and Palincsar (1982). The belief that to be effective, training in metalearning must take place over an extended period of time, lies behind studies by Paris et al (1984Paris et al ( ,1986 in which children in elementary school classes were taught for a year about strategies that are effective in reading.…”

Metacognitive writing strategies of Sri Lankan secondary school children

“…According to Paris, Saarnio, & Cross (1986), the strategies are skimming, rereading, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Ellis (1986) cited planning, checking, testing, revising and evaluation as strategies.…”