METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES FOR

HELPING POOR
READERS IN THE CONTENT AREAS
John Arul Phillips
INTRODUCTION

My kids can't read their textbooks! But, every teacher is a teacher of reading! Both of those
positions are the result of the dominant role the textbook plays in the secondary schools.
Many teachers place the responsibility for learning on the textbook, or on the students'
inability to learn from the textbook (Thelen,1985 p. v).

This is prevalent in most secondary schools and yet little has been done to address the
problem. The poor comprehension of prose material refers to those found in the content
areas such as in science and the social sciences. The purpose of this article is firstly to
discuss the concept of learning from text, secondly to describe the characteristics of
poor readers based on research evidence, thirdly, is to discuss metacognition and its role in
the comprehension process, and finally to suggest an approach for assisting poor readers
understand prose material in the content areas.

LEARNING FROM TEXT

In the secondary school under the KBSM (or Integrated Secondary School Curriculum),
students are introduced to subjects such as history, geography, science, health science,
commerce, and economics as separate disciplines. With each subject taught, there are
specific textbooks together with perhaps workbooks, worksheets and reference materials
from which learners are expected to extract information. Many content area teachers
assume that their students can comprehend what they read based upon their ability to
communicate and sound out words. Furthermore, some teachers are of the opinion that
reading skills should have been acquired in the primary school and that secondary school is
for the mastery of content. Few would deny that `content is king' but the zeal with which
teachers try to `get through the curriculum' often results in weak learners (or weak
readers) being left on their own to resolve their learning problems.

Success in the content areas or the school subject areas is very much dependent on the
efficiency and effectiveness of learners' in comprehending their textbooks and related prose
materials. The dominance of the textbook is most evident in Malaysian secondary schools and
the printed page continues to be the major source of information for students whether they be
in the form of books, journals, magazines. pamphlets, or presented on a computer screen.
Reading comprehension or understanding written content is the crux of the reading act.
Students cannot learn unless they can comprehend reading material, and they cannot
remember what they read unless they understand it.

Learning from text at the secondary school level requires the skill of having to cope with
a variety of text structure. The text structure of social science materials present certain
peculiarities that make special demands on the reader. Specialised technical vocabulary and
symbols such as maps, globes, statistical tables, graphs; and text structure that is
characterised by cause-effect pattern, comparison-contrast pattern, sequential events
pattern, and fact versus opinion pattern, are features of social science materials (Lunstrum
and Taylor,1978). For the sciences, Davies and Greene (1984) identified seven types of
text structure, namely; instruction texts, classification texts, structure texts, mechanism
texts, process texts, concept-principle texts and hypothesis-theory texts. Unfortunately,

1
research has demonstrated that a sizeable proportion of secondary school students are
poor readers, and their inability to handle textbooks and supplementary materials is most
serious.

Hence the role of reading in the secondary school is most evident especially when it is
realised that not all students are able to learn from text. When written prose materials are
the vehicle for learning, content area teachers have a significant role in showing students how
to learn.

THE POOR READERS

Why is it that some students are able to understand an assigned reading after having only
read it once? Whereas other students have to read the same text three or four times.
These learners realise that rereading may not necessarily be effective in trying to
understand a passage. Research has revealed that comprehension failure may be
attributed to the text processing characteristics of poor readers who among other things;

• - seem to be unaware of their purpose for reading, and are relatively insensitive to the
demands of reading for meaning and tend to concentrate on the decoding of
individual words and phrases and are less able to detect text inconsistencies (Di
Vesta, Hayward & Orlando,1979).
- are less apt in modifying their reading rate according to the purpose of reading, that is,
when to slow down when material is difficult and when to speed up reading when
skimming or to get a general impression (Smith,1967).
- are not as efficient in extracting main ideas from a passage and tend to dwell on
details and subordinate ideas (Brown and Smiley,1977).
- are less able to grasp the logical structure of the text, that is, a lack of
understanding of how and why the ideas are interconnected (Owings et al. 1980).
- experience difficulty in relating their past knowledge to what they are reading
(Sullivan,1978).
- are less sensitive to semantic and syntactic cues in making predictions about
information that they are uncertain about (Irakson and Miller.1976).
• - are less likely to take remedial measures when comprehension failures occur,
such as to reread previous segment of text in search of clarification (Garner &
Kraus,1980).

The poor reader may be summarised as one who is less able to take charge of his or her
own cognitive processes while reading. They are not as flexible as good readers in adapting
their processing to the demands of the task and to capitalise on the structure or
contextual constraints inherent in texts. In other words, poor readers are less efficient in
monitoring their understanding of the material read or are deficient in metacognitive skills.
Hence, when a teacher assigns reading in a history, geography, science or economics class,
he or she "cannot expect all students to `read more carefully', `figure things out for
themselves,' `look it up', or `ask someone for help' when so often the student is unaware
that something has `gone wrong' in the first place" (Langer, 1982, p.45).

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF METACOGNITION IN COMPREHENSION?

The term metacognition was introduced by psychologists to refer to the knowledge and
control people have over their own thinking and learning activities (Flavell and
Wellman,1977, Flavell,1978). It deals with "the individual's knowledge about the task,
possible strategies that might be applied to the task and the individual's awareness of their
own abilities in relation to these strategies" (Taylor,1983,p.270). Its increasing role
in reading comprehension is attributable to the influence of research in cognitive science.
Metacognition plays an important role in reading comprehension and it refers to what a

2
learner knows about his or her cognitive processes (conscious awareness) and the ability to
control these processes by planning, choosing and monitoring.

Brown (1980) identified reading strategies as instances of metacognition and described

metacomprehension as "any deliberate planful control of activities that give birth to
comprehension" (p.456). Metacomprehension involves at least two separate components;
that is awareness and action (Baker and Brown, 1985).

--> AWARENESS
1 -> purpose
1 -> what one knows
1 -> what one needs to know
METACOMPREHENSION -->1 -> what facilitates learning
1
1
--> ACTION
-> checking
-> planning
-> evaluating
-> revising
-> remediating

Figure 1: Components of Metacomprehension

(Brown, 1982)

Awareness of one's own cognitive behaviour during reading includes;

- awareness of purpose of the reading assignment,
- awareness of what one knows about the reading task,
- awareness of what needs to be known,
- awareness of the strategies and skills which facilitate or impede learning
from text.

Action is the ability to use self-regulatory mechanisms or cognitive

monitoring to ensure the successful
completion of the task such as:
- checking the outcome of any attempt to solve the problem,
- planning one's next move,
- evaluating the effectiveness of any attempted action,
- testing and revising one's strategies for learning, and remediating any
difficulties encountered by
using compensatory strategies

The successful reader is one who is able to monitor his or her understanding of what is
being read and this metacognitive skill is apparently not developed in all students.
Linked to reading, metacognition involves `knowing what you know', `knowing what you need
to know' and `knowing the utility of active intervention' (Sanacore,1984). In other words, to
be an efficient and effective reader, the person should be able to monitor his or her degree of
understanding, be aware of the knowledge possessed, be conscious of the task demanded

3
and know the strategies that facilitates comprehension. However, Baker and Brown
(1984) point out that though,

.... it is tempting to conclude that ineffective monitoring of one's

cognitive processes during reading is the cause of poor
comprehension, we
caution against such precipitous conclusion. The majority of studies
have
shown that ineffective monitoring is associated with poor
comprehension, but
not that it is the cause. It may be that poor comprehension reduces the
ability
to monitor one's ongoing activities; or perhaps a third factor such
as
impoverished background knowledge, is responsible for both problems
(p.44).

AN APPROACH FOR HELPING POOR READERS

Nonetheless, it is evident that one of the reasons for comprehension failure is the inability of
learners to monitor their comprehension. Comprehension monitoring ability differ between
poor and good readers as evidenced by the varying processing strategies adopted by each
group. The question that is of interest is whether instruction in monitoring of one's own
comprehension can assist learners to be more efficient readers in the content areas?
Existing research suggest that instruction in comprehension monitoring can be successful
and should be attempted by content area teachers, even though some might view this as
outside their repertoire of skills and responsibilities, and that it should be left to reading
specialists. If comprehension and content mastery is the goal of instruction, then content area
teachers will have to instruct students in metacognitive skills that will help them in learning
new cognitive processes.

Beck (1976) identified three steps in learning new cognitive processes:

(1) altering "automatic thoughts" - self-verbalisations and images that one is conscious
of using;
(2) recognising and altering error-producing cognitive processes;
(3) discovering and altering underlying, previously unrecognised "schemas". Based on
these principles the following metacognitive approach is suggested for helping poor readers
comprehend prose material in the various content areas (see Figure 2).

---------------------------------------------------

EXPLANATION BY THE TEACHER

* introduce a skill
* show examples and non-examples
* exercises to practice the skill

MODELING BY THE TEACHER

* `think aloud' of the modeling process by the teacher/expert
- identification of comprehension failure
- "fix-up" strategies

4
 APPLICATION BY THE LEARNER
* `think aloud' of the modeling process by learners in different
situations
* comparison of their modeling process
* silent modeling

--------------------------------------------------

Figure 2: An Approach Towards Helping Poor Readers in the Content Areas

Step 1: Explanation

The teacher decides which skill that is to be taught, lists the steps to follow when executing
the skill, why it is important and when students will need to use it. Examples of such
comprehension skills are, context clues, relating relevant prior knowledge to new information,
paraphrasing/summarising effectively, identification of text structure, self-questioning and
inferential reasoning. The teacher emphasises that comprehending text is a problem
solving task that requires a line of reasoning or a way of thinking. For example, in learning
how to use context clues, the teacher explains how the semantic and syntactic
structures of text may provide clues in understanding difficult words or phrases. The
teacher lists the types of contextual aids that may be used by the reader such as;
definition, linked synonyms, examples, modifiers, restatements, contrast and cause-
effect (Vacca,1981).

The teacher describes the reasoning process and presents several examples and non-
examples that can be used when explaining the process. It should be evident that the
technique of using context clues is mostly an inferential process that requires the reader
to see an explicit or implicit relationship between an unfamiliar word and its context or to
connect what he or she already knows with the unknown term. Simultaneously, the teacher
anticipates the kinds of problems students may have when and how to use the reasoning
process and selects passages that may be used to clarify misunderstandings
(Herrmann,1988).

Step 2: Modeling by the Teacher

Besides merely explaining the comprehension, the teacher seen as the expert models the
reasoning proces involved. The teacher "thinks out loud" stating WHEN and HOW the
reasoning process should be used. The teacher reads a passage to the class, does self-
questioning and describes the fix-up strategies the teacher will use. During this whole
process the teacher thinks aloud the mental processes each step of the way.

The teacher provides a model of the thinking process by stating what is going on inside his or
her head. The teacher is assumed to be the `expert reader' while the student is the novice.
While making inferences, for example, the following `inner dialogue' might be the sequence of
cognitive processes going on inside the head of the teacher-expert.

Given this text, I'm required to make inferences. OK, That means the message is not
explicitly mentioned. Hmmm! How do I draw inferences? [TEACHER PRETENDS TO HAVE
TROUBLE WITH THE TEXT] I need to `read between the lines'. Let me first identify the
explicit information. [TEACHER READS] Do any of the words or phrases explicitly stated
provide clues as to the implied message. Yes! this phrase seems to imply that....
Furthermore, if I connect the first sentence of paragraph 1 and the first sentence of
paragraph 2, I could infer that... [TEACHER DRAWS A CONCLUSION] One of the causes for

5
this event may be inferred from the following words.... Yes! this event most probably
resulted in ... and this is implied in this sentence.

The teacher checks how the students interpreted the modeling information asking them to tell
or show when and how to use the reasoning process. If, however, the students still do not
understand, the teacher provide cues in the form of prompts, analogies, metaphors, or
other forms of elaboration which help students refine their understanding of the reasoning
process (Herrmann,1988). Teachers share their thinking through externalising their inner
dialogue by verbalising the questions they are asking themselves. By sharing their
strategies, teachers can provide their students with models of mental processes.

Step 3: Application

The student performs the same task under the guidance of the teacher. As students describe
what is going on `inside their heads' they become aware of their thinking processes. The
teacher shapes students' evolving understandings of reasoning processes by asking them
to explain how they made sense of the text and, on the basis of what they say, providing
additional explanation t help them reason like experts. Similarly, as they listen to their
classmates describing their mental processes, they develop flexibility of thought and an
appreciation for the different ways of solving the same problem.

In the student participation phase, students are asked to pose questions, spot confusions,
form hypotheses, find supporting evidence and suggest remedies to failures. In the silent
reading phase, students do their own monitoring and the teacher is available to suggest
strategies when difficulties are encountered.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. DiVesta, F.J., Hayward, K.G. and Orlando, V.P. (1979). Developmental trends in
monitoring for comprehension, Child Development, 50, 97-105.
2. Garner, R. (1981). Monitoring of passage inconsistencies among poor readers: A
preliminary test of the `piecemeal processing' explanation, Journal of Educational
Researcher, 74, 31, 159-162.
3. Garner, R. & Kraus, C. Monitoring of understanding among seventh graders: An
investigation of good comprehender-poor comprehender in knowing and regulating
behaviors. Unpublished manuscript, University of Maryland, College Park.
4. August, D., Flavell, J.H. and Clift, R., (1984). Comparison of comprehension monitoring
of skilled and less skilled readers, Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 1, 39-48.
5. Flavell, J.H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-
developmental inquiry, American Psychologist, 34, 10, 906-911.
6. Sanacore, J. (1984). Metacognition and improvement of reading: Some important
links, Journal of Reading, 707-713.
7. Taylor, N.E (1983). Metacognitive ability: A curriculum priority, Reading Psychology:
An International Quarterly, 4:269-278.
8. Brown, L. (1980). Metacognitive development and reading. In R.Spiro, B. Bruce & W.
Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension: Perspectives from
Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence & Education, Hillsdale, N.J.:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
9. Brown, L (1982). Learning how to learn from reading. In J. Langer and M. Smith-
Burke (Eds.), Reader Meets Author/Bridging the Gap: A Psycholinguistic and
Sociolinguistic Perspective. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association.
10.Hermann, B.A. (1988). Two approaches for helping poor readers become more
strategic, The Reading Teacher, (October), :24-28.
11.Irakson, R.L. & Miller, J.W. (1978). Sensitivity to syntactic and semantic cues in good and
poor comprehenders, Journal of Educational Psychology, 68:787-792

6
 12.Lunstrum, J & Taylor, B. (1978). Teaching Reading in the Social Studies. Newark,
Del.: International Reading Association.
13.Owings, R.A., Peterson, G.A., Bransford, J.D., Morris, C.D. & Stein, B.S. (1980).
Spontaneous monitoring and regulations of learning: A comparison of successful
and less successful fifth graders, Journal of Educational Psychology, 72:250-
256.
14.Smith, H.K. (1967). The responses of good and poor readers when asked to read for
different purposes, Reading Research Quarterly, 3:53-84.
15.Sullivan, J. (1977). Comparing strategies of good and poor comprehenders, Journal of
Reading, 48:36-50.
16.Thelen, J (1985). Foreward. In J.W. Harker (Ed.), Classroom Strategies for Secondary
Reading, Newark, Del.: International Reading Association.
17.Vacca, R.T. (1981). Content Area Reading, Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jurnal Pembacaan Malaysia (Malaysian Journal of Reading) 1992. vol.1. 11-17.