Learning disabled and average readers' working memory and comprehension: does metacognition play a role?

Abstract

The present study investigates (a) whether learning disabled readers' working memory deficits that underlie poor reading comprehension are related to a general system, and (b) whether metacognition contributes to comprehension beyond what is predicted by working memory and word knowledge. To this end, performance between learning and disabled (N = 60) and average readers (N = 60) was compared on the reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary subtests of the Nelson Skills Reading Test, Sentence Span test composed of high and low imagery words, and a Metacognitive Questionnaire. As expected, differences between groups in working memory, vocabulary, and reading measures emerged, whereas ability groups were statistically comparable on the Metacognitive Questionnaire. A within-group analysis indicated that the correlation patterns between working memory, vocabulary, metacognition, and reading comprehension were not the same between ability groups. For predicting reading comprehension, the metacognitive questionnaire best predicted learning disabled readers' performance, whereas the working memory span measure that included low-imagery words best predicted average achieving readers' comprehension. Overall, the results suggest that the relationship between learning disabled readers' generalised working memory deficits and poor reading comprehension may be mediated by metacognition.

Intellectual and metacognitive skills of novices while studying texts under conditions of text difficulty and time constraint

“…poor decoders, students suffering from dyslexia, or other learning-disabled students; cf. Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker, 2001;Swanson & Trahan, 1996). The present study pertained to students who were proficient readers, while varying in metacognitive skillfulness during text studying.…”

Pointing to parallels in ability-related differences in the use of metacognition in academic and psychomotor tasks

“…Swanson and Trahan (1996) found that both working memory and comprehension were deficient in learning-disabled readers. If task knowledge is not already possessed by the learner, more resources will have to be allocated during task performance to figuring out the lower-order skills (such as decoding, computation, letter formation) rather than focusing on the higher-order aspects of the task such as comprehension or generation of creative ideas.…”

Metacognitive reading strategies in learning disability: Relations between usage level, academic self-efficacy and self-concept

“…For example, Winograd and Paris (1989) found that SLDdiagnosed children were unable to solve problems they encountered while reading, nor did they have plans or strategies for making sense of the text being read. It was found that the metacognitive reading awareness of students with reading disability was lower than that of their TD peers (Chapman & Tunmer, 1997;Swanson & Trahan, 1996), while students with difficulty in reading had inadequate metacognitive reading skills, as well as skills for organizing the understanding of a text and establishing a connection between the text and the meaning (Botsas & Padeliadu, 2004). In a study by Baydık (2011), it was reported that students with difficulty in reading did not use different strategies in order to better understand the text; they also had lower levels of strategy usage in comparison to their peers.…”