The impact of metacognitive scaffolding and monitoring on reading comprehension

Abstract

This article reports on a study that investigated the impact of metacognitive strategy instruction on reading comprehension in English as a second language (ESL) among 67 Year-1 Secondary students in Singapore. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) and the University of New South Wales, International Competitions and Assessments for Schools, (UNSW ICAS) English competition Paper F (2008) were respectively used to measure the students' extent of metacognitive awareness and reading comprehension ability. In addition, qualitative data on student experiences with metacognitive strategy instruction was collected via semi-structured interviews. The intervention involved the explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies via the Reciprocal Teaching approach. The findings corroborated previous research that there is a relationship between metacognitive awareness-raising and reading comprehension improvement. In addition, metacognitive strategy instruction was found to be effective in increasing metacognitive awareness, and was linked to small but statistically significant reading comprehension gains. These quantitative findings are further supported by qualitative data gathered from the student interviews. Our study has successfully identified a relevant tool in the form of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) for use in student needs analysis and suggests the applicability of this research to Singapore or a similar context.