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, 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 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
1 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 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
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
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.
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vol.1. 11-17.