METACOGNITIONDuring the Lesson

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.

COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

Teacher Think Alouds

Accessing Prior Knowledge

Close Reading

Questioning the Author

Summarizing

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)

READ ALOUD THINK ALOUD

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)

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.)

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)

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

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.

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)

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)

READER SELF-RECOGNITION

• Thinking about thinking

http://youtube.com/v/LNeQKk_1Bg8

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)

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.

WHERE DO WE, AS TEACHERS, START?

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.

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.

RESOURCESIrvin, 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