Primary Teachers` Metacognitive Awareness Of Reading Strategies

Abstract

Metacognitive reading strategies are a key factor for a deep understanding of academic texts. The purpose of this study is to analyse the level of primary teachers` metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and its relation to explicit teaching of metacognitive reading strategies in the classroom setting. 56 primary teachers from Arad filled in the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory and a questionnaire regarding explicit instructional practices on three metacognitive reading strategies: planning, monitoring and evaluating. The results showed that teachers have a medium level on Global Reading and Support Reading strategies and a high level on Problem-Solving strategies. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies was positively associated with explicit teaching of metacognitive reading strategies. The findings of this study underline the idea that in order to effectively teach metacognitive reading strategies to students, teachers should be aware of their own reading mechanism. For greater impact, future educational programs on reading should aim to increase the metacognitive awareness of both students and teachers.

Keywords: Reading strategiesmetacognitive awarenessprimary school

Introduction

From a psycholinguistic point of view, reading is a problem-solving behaviour that actively involves the reader in the process of extracting meanings (Papalia, 1987). Understanding cannot take place without the interaction between the readers and the text (Pardo, 2004). These transactional activities refer to the integration of information in the text with prior knowledge to build meaning from the context, and to the use of conscious and unconscious strategies to solve comprehension problems.

At the level of the curriculum, reading is a cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary competence that is formed and perfected in all school subjects, but which becomes a priority in the curricular area “Language and Communication” (Hadârcă, 2015). At the end of the primary cycle, students should be able not only to read a text correctly and fluently at first glance, but to extract the necessary information from the text, analyze it, compare it, critically reflect upon it. The results of the international tests (PIRLS, PISA) have shown that, unfortunately, this is not always possible. Many countries, including our country, are experiencing the phenomenon of functional illiteracy, which refers to “the incapability to understand complex texts despite adequate schooling, age, language skills, elementary reading skills, and IQ” (Vagvölgyi, Coldea, Dresler, Schrader, & Nuerk, 2016, p. 9). This deficiency affects students not only in their school performance but also in their everyday life.

There are many causes and factors related to functional illiteracy, but a solid hypothesis that has emerged over the last few decades is that poor readers have not mastered effective strategies to deal with reading tasks. Good readers are very strategic before, during, and after reading (Pressley & Gaskins, 2006). They activate a series of cognitive and metacognitive strategies when reading a complex, academic or non-academic text. Cognitive strategies are activated to facilitate task fulfillment, and metacognitive strategies to monitor and regulate cognitive processes involved in the task (Salataci & Akyel, 2002; Ahmadi, Ismail, & Abdullah, 2013). There is a wide range of cognitive strategies that are used by experienced readers such as: browsing, context guessing, use of the dictionary, taking notes, emphasizing, using images, activating previous knowledge, summarizing, using linguistic indices, repeating words (Lemeni, 2001).

Metacognitive strategies are superior and often unconceived. Jacobs and Paris (1987) have divided metacognitive control in planning, evaluation and regulation processes. Planning includes selecting a strategy to achieve a goal. Evaluation is the monitoring of progress towards the goal. Adjustment refers to reviewing and modifying the strategy to reach the goal. In other words, the subject first analyzes what is to be done, makes a plan, analyzes the utility of the plan, and then makes changes and revisions to the original plan. In the process of reading monitoring, it is important for the student to have knowledge of reading strategies (declarative knowledge), to know how to use these strategies (procedural knowledge) and to know when to use strategies (conditional knowledge).

Reading comprehension can be developed through explicit training and teaching (Rupley, Blair, & Nichols, 2009). A series of studies have shown that instruction of metacognitive strategies enhances reading comprehension even in primary school students (Houtveen, & van de Grift, 2007; DeBoer, 2003; Muñiz-Swicegood, 1994; Othman, Mahamud, & Jaidi, 2014). Metacognitive training programs help students to “think about their thinking” before, during, and after they read (Boulware-Gooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007). They are taught to plan, monitor, and evaluate reading, frequently asking if what they read makes sense, sounds or looks right, and to use a number of repair strategies when they have difficulty during reading.

Problem Statement

Metacognition plays a central role in reading comprehension. It has been demonstrated that when reading a complex text, skilled readers implement a series of metacognitive strategies as compared to weak readers who do not. Even if there are higher level functions, metacognitive skills can be developed in young children as well. Through guided and explicit modeling, students can learn strategies to process the written message thoroughly and to extract the required information in reading samples. Although they are stipulated in school teaching recommendations found in the curricula, not all the teachers teach students strategies to monitor understanding. Castanheira, Roman, and Hossu (2018) highlighted, for example, that metacognitive awareness of teaching is positively related to the teaching of metacognitive strategies involved in reading. The more teachers are aware of their own teaching, the more they teach students to be more metacognitive during reading. However, there are very few studies to investigate the factors related to the teaching of metacognitive reading strategies. Analyzing some variables associated with metacognitive teaching of reading would be an important step in understanding this instructive activity.

Research Questions

The research questions are the following:

• How do primary school teachers see themselves as readers? What is the level of metacognitive awareness of their reading strategies in reading academic texts?

•Is there a positive relationship between teachers` metacognitive awareness abilities of their own reading strategies and the direct instruction of metacognitive reading strategies in the classroom?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to investigate possible factors related to the teaching of metacognitive reading strategies to pupils in primary school, namely their own metacognitive awareness of the educator`s reading strategies. We have started from the premise that if teachers are aware of the metacognitive strategies involved in their reading, then the possibility to facilitate the development of metacognitive skills in pupils increases.

Research Methods

Findings

Descriptive statistics indicated a high level of MARSI (M=3.54) (Table 01 ). The authors of MARSI considered high, an average of 3.5 and above. The analysis on all three scales highlighted that teachers have a medium level on Global Reading Strategies (M=3.47) and Support Reading Strategies (M=3.33) and a high level on Problem-Solving Strategies (M=3.88).

The subjects also show a high level of awareness in terms of instructional practice related to metacognitive reading (M=4.07). The lowest level is represented by the awareness of metacognitive teaching strategies used before reading (M=3.88) and the highest level is the awareness of metacognitive reading strategies used after reading (M=4.16).

To check whether there is a relation between the MARSI and IPMRI scores, we have used the correlation statistics for the overall table and the three scales.

The correlation analysis indicated a significant positive relationship between MARSI scores and IPMRI scores (r = .451 **) (Table 02 ). Of the three MARSI factors, GLOB is the only factor positively associated with scores from all three IPMRI sub-scales. The strongest association is between GLOB and the training of during reading strategies (r = .508 **), then with the training of before reading strategies (r = .444 **), the lowest being the correlation with the training of the after reading strategies (r = .390 **). PROB is positively associated with during reading strategies (r = .344 **). SUP is significantly associated with during reading strategies (r = .420 **).

We applied the simple linear regression method to verify the effectiveness of a predictive model of IPMRI based on the MARSI variable. The total score at IPMRI was introduced as a variable criterion, and the total MARSI score as predictor variable. Simple linear regression revealed that MARSI is a predictor of IPMRI (F (1.54) = 13.821, p <0.001). The adjusted value R square is .189, meaning that MARSI justifies 18.9% of the metacognitive reading strategies instruction, the global effect being of medium-high level (Cohen, 1988).

Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to analyse the level of primary teachers` metacognitive awareness of reading strategies and its relation to explicit teaching of metacognitive reading strategies in the classroom. The first research question was: What is the level of metacognitive awareness of the primary school teachers` reading strategies when they read academic texts? The results highlighted a high level of metacognitive awareness of their reading strategies. Subjects reported the highest score of 3.88 on PROB, followed by the score of 3.47 on GLOB, and the lowest score of 3.33 on the SUP. The subjects are mostly aware of the use of problem-solving strategies and at a medium level of the use of global and support strategies. The results are in accordance with previous studies. Using MARSI as measurement tool, Iwai (2016) reported that preservice teachers scored the highest in the Problem-Solving Strategies (M=3.75), had the second highest scores in the Global Reading Strategies (M=3.45) category and the lowest scores in the Support Reading Strategies (M=2.84). A first conclusion of this study is that teachers generally see themselves as experienced and strategic readers and are aware of the importance of using metacognitive strategies in reading academic texts. When it comes to metacognitive reading training, the results are even more promising, the explicit instructional practices on the three metacognitive reading strategies (planning, monitoring and evaluating) being high.

The second research question was: Is there a positive relationship between the metacognitive awareness abilities of one`s own reading strategies and the direct training of metacognitive reading strategies in the classroom? The statistical analysis showed a strong positive association between these two variables. Global Reading Strategies awareness is the most closely related to direct classroom training of reading strategies (r = .506 **). The more primary teachers are aware of the use of techniques such as setting purpose for reading, predicting what text is about, confirming predictions, using text structure and other textual features to enhance reading comprehension, the more they teach students strategies that would monitor understanding before-, during- and after-reading. However, Global Reading Strategies are of medium level, which highlights the need for teacher training to develop metacognitive awareness skills in both reading and literacy. Positive correlations were highlighted between PROB and teaching during reading strategies (r = .344 **) and between SUP and teaching during reading strategies(r = .420 **).Teachers who teach students how to control their understanding during reading are also those who are aware of activating similar strategies for themselves.

This research emphasizes the importance of reflection and self-analysis of our own ways of action when it comes to educating students. The educational content can often interfere with our own experience, and so we can deviate from the curricular requirements.

Another important conclusion of this study is that in order to be successful in implementing metacognitive reading strategies, teachers should be trained in the awareness of some instructional practices that they feel not very well trained for, such as global reading strategies. MARSI proved to be a predictor of IPMRI, therefore future educational programs on reading should aim to increase the metacognitive awareness of both students and teachers.

The limitation of this study is the low number of participants. Although MARSI's results are in line with the results of other studies, a larger sample would increase the power of data generalization.

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