Teaching metacognitive reading comprehension strategies in content area.

1. METACOGNITION
During the Lesson

2. THE THEORY BEHIND THE PRACTICE
• Metacognitive Theory is the process of thinking about one’s own thinking.
• Cognitive strategies are mental and behavioral activities used to increase the
likelihood of comprehending, such as rereading, activating background knowledge,
and adjusting reading speed.
• Metacognitive strategies are self-monitoring and self-regulating activities focusing on
the process and product of reading.
• Research has demonstrated poor readers have far less metacognitive awareness than
their higher achieving peers and young readers have less than older readers.

3. COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES
Teacher Think Alouds
Accessing Prior Knowledge
Close Reading
Questioning the Author
Summarizing

4. TEACHER THINK ALOUDS
A conversation between teacher and class where each verbally state their own
thoughts on the topic at hand.
It allows for each to know what the other is thinking and solves many “mysteries” about
the concept.
(Irvin, 2007, p. 151)

5. READ ALOUD THINK ALOUD

6. ACCESSING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Before reading, proficient readers activate what they already know about the topic.
Strategies for this include the use of a KWL PLus Summary chart.
K: What the reader already knows about the topic
W: What the reader wants to know about the topic
L: What the reader has learned about the topic
The adding of the summary sections allows for the student to take the information from the
three columns and summarize to form a cognitive imprint of the lesson of their gains
from the lesson.
(Irvin, 2007, p. 155)

7. COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES
Close Reading:
Reading to uncover layers of
meaning that lead to deep
comprehension
(Boyles,
2013)
*notice features
*notice language used
*understand the author’s purpose
*evaluate and critique what is written
(Learning A-Z, n.d.)

8. QUESTIONING THE AUTHOR
This strategy is used for helping the reader to better comprehend complicated text.
It teaches the student to think about what the author is saying, rather than what the text
states.
ex.“What is the author trying to say here?”
“How does this connect to what the author has told us before?”
“Why does the author tell us this?”
The teacher role is to model how the reader makes sense of the complicated, or confusing
text. This strategy is best used to introduce text the reader will be responsible for
reading on their own.
(Irvin, 2007, p. 160)

9. SUMMARIZING
As the students read, they should stop every couple of paragraphs and recap what they
have just learned.
To model this concept, teachers need to demonstrate that this technique is for recapping
the main idea of the section, and not every small detail.
(Irvin, 2007, p. 153

10. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES EMBEDDED IN
SELF ASSESSMENT
Students need to be involved in the self-evaluation process in order to monitor their own
performance.
*Being involved in the process of building assessment rubrics as a proactive monitoring
tool which impels students to persevere using multiple strategies to achieve the goals
they helped set allows students to take responsibility for their own authentic learning.

11. METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES EMBEDDED IN
SELF ASSESSMENT
Authentic student learning is achieved when students have a stake in their own
learning.
* To engage students in learning, thinking about their own thinking, they must find
value in the tasks they must perform and have to have some choices concerning
what they study.
(Irvin, 2007)

12. READER SELF-RECOGNITION
Readers monitor their own comprehension
* they know when reading is making sense and they know what to do when it is not
* they are aware of their own misunderstandings of the text
* they make adjustments when necessary using various strategies
- rereading the passage
- reading ahead
- searching their prior knowledge to make sure they understand
(Irvin, et. al., 2007, p. 25)

13. READER SELF-RECOGNITION
• Thinking about thinking
http://youtube.com/v/LNeQKk_1Bg8

14. READING INFORMATIONAL TEXT
Students moving into the middle level classroom have little experience
reading informational texts. Teachers work to provide the critical content
information, and students quickly learn that they can often times avoid
critically text reading by paying attention to the classroom lectures and
discussions.
(Irvin, 2007)

15. CREATING INDEPENDENT LEARNERS
• When students are able to recognize and use text
features in a variety of texts they are using a valuable
metacognitive skill to increase their abilities to
remember what they are reading.

16. WHERE DO WE, AS TEACHERS, START?

17. TOOLS
Graphic organizers can often times help students to “see” the structure and better
organize their thinking during the reading.
Using graphic organizers can give many students the visual representation of key
concepts to aid in their retention of any new information.
❖ Sample graphic organizers are being provided to you today. You can find different
variations of each online to help with your specific content needs.

18. PLEASE COMPLETE AN EXIT TICKET BEFORE YOU
LEAVE. YOUR FEEDBACK IS VALUABLE TO US
AND WE WANT TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU
MAY HAVE.
★ Do you currently use any of the presented tools to address reading skills in your
content area classroom?
★ What information was most valuable to you as a content area teacher?
★ What questions do you still have on this topic?
★ Do you feel that you can implement these procedures tomorrow in your
classroom?
Please provide your name and email if you have questions you would like to discuss further with the presenters.

19. RESOURCES
Irvin, J. L., Buehl, D. R., & Radcliffe, B. J. (2007). Strategies to enhance literacy and learning
in middle school content area classrooms (3rd ed.). United States of America: Pearson.
Boyles, N. (2013). Closing in on close reading.Educational Leadership,70.Retrieved from
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec12/vol70/num04/Closing-in-on-
Close-Reading.aspx
Learning A-Z, (n.d.). Close reading. Common Core State Standards.Retrieved from
http://www.learninga-z.com/commoncore/close-reading.html
Tracey, D., Morrow, L.M. (2012) Lenses on Reading (2nd Edition)New York:: Guilford
Webster, P. (Producer). (2012, Aug 30). Informational text "how-to":The structures, lesson
planning,teaching, and literacy [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/AE-Its8EV-s