Metacognitive Abilities of Above and below Average Readers: Effects of Conceptual Tempo, Passage Level, and Error Type on Error Detection

Abstract

A number of researchers have suggested recently that differences between good and poor comprehenders lie in differences in metacognitive skills. This study examines one of the paradigms used to measure metacognitive skill-the error detection task. Seventy-four above and below grade level sixth graders were asked to detect order changes and nonsense word substitutions in thirdgrade and sixth-grade level passages. It was found that conceptual tempo (impulsivity/reflectivity), passage readability, and error type, as well as reading ability, all influenced the performance of these children on the error detection tasks. No differences were found between above and below average readers on two other metacognitive tasks, a reading difficulty judgment, and a knowledge and purposes of reading interview. Results indicate that conceptual tempashould be considered in any explanation of the relationship between metacognitive monitoring and reading ability. 235

Teaching Meaning Vocabulary: Productive Approaches for Poor Readers

“…Not only do poor readers not know many of the words they encounter, they may not realize which words they do not know (Erickson, Stahl, & Rinehart, 1985). In addition, because they get into a pattern of skipping words that are not immediately accessible, poor readers often appear unaware that they have any partial knowledge about words and may not use what they know about partially unknown words to help with the larger context.…”

Children's Ability to Use Three Standards to Evaluate Their Comprehension of Text

“…Although both age and reading proficiency have been linked to evaluation ability, results across studies have not been consistent. For example, although many investigators have found that older children and better readers are better able to evaluate their understanding than younger children or poor readers (Baker, 1984a(Baker, , 1984bGarner & Taylor, 1982;Markman, 1977;Winograd & Johnston, 1982), others have failed to find these developmental and reading proficiency effects under certain conditions (Erickson, Stahl, & Rinehart, 1985;Markman, 1979;Markman & Gorin, 1981;Zabrucky & Ratner, in press). And although investigators typically report that young children or poor readers are not effective at evaluating their own understanding, some researchers have found signs of evaluation ability in children as young as 5 or 6 years of age (e.g., Baker, 1984a;Flavell, Speer, Green, & August, 1981;Patterson, O'Brien, Kister, Carter, & Kotsonis, 1981) and in children identified as poor readers (Erickson, Stahl, & Rinehart, 1985;Zabrucky & Ratner, in press).…”

Teaching Children to Learn Word Meanings from Context: A Synthesis and Some Questions

“…In a derivation task, the participant is told that the word is unknown or a nonsense word is substituted. In the more incidental learning of word meanings during free reading, readers are often unaware that they do not know certain words in the text (e.g., Erickson, Stahl, & Rinehart, 1985), and thus they do not apply special attention to those words. Instead, Stahl (1991) speculated that incidental learning may be explained using a connectionist metaphor.…”