Children's reading strategies, metacognition, and motivation

Abstract Training studies in the field of children's reading have been useful methods for both theoretical understanding of the development of skilled reading and the improvement of educational practices. The data reported here are from an instructional study designed to improve students' use of reading strategies by increasing their metacognitive knowledge about reading. Approximately 500 third-grade and 500 fifth-grade children received an experimental curriculum that explicitly taught them to use reading strategies. An additional 600 children participated as control subjects. All children were tested at the beginning and end of the school year on a broad range of reading comprehension, strategy, metacognitive, and motivational measures. The findings indicate that children in experimental classrooms made significantly greater gains in awareness about reading than control children and demonstrated superior strategic skills. Additional analyses revealed the patterns of reading strategies, motivation, and metacognition characterizing readers of different ages and abilities. The implications of these results for conceptualizing reading and for educational practice were discussed.

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