Case Study

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STAR SHEET Comprehension & Vocabulary: Grades 3–5

Metacognitive Strategies

About the Strategy A metacognitive strategy is one that assists students in monitoring their own learning by asking themselves questions as they read a passage .

What the Research and Resources Say • The purpose of strategy instruction is to provide students with metacognitive tools that they

can use on their own (Swanson & DeLaPaz, 1998) . • Rather than teaching specific strategies to increase comprehension, several teachers monitor

comprehension by asking questions after students have read a passage (Levy, Coleman, & Alsman, 2002; Swanson & DeLaPaz, 1998) .

• One comprehension strategy should be taught at a time . Students should not be taught a second strategy until the first one has been mastered (Swanson & DeLaPaz, 1998) .

• Students must be taught when and where to use a strategy (Swanson & DeLaPaz, 1998) . • Students should be taught to question themselves before, during, and after reading a passage

(Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997) . • Students with learning disabilities have difficulty connecting present strategies with new

situations and mentally organizing new material . In addition, when students with learning disabilities read, they ask themselves fewer questions about the reading (Gersten, Baker, Pugach, Scanlon, & Chard, 2001) .

Strategies to Implement Prior to teaching the strategies listed under the Types of Activities to Implement (next section), upper elementary students should be able to complete the following activities: • Prior to reading new material, teachers should activate and assess student’s prior knowledge .

This can be done by making predictions based on the title, a scanning of story pictures, or from past experiences with the topic, themes, or characters in the story .

• Students should be able to identify the main idea of a passage . If students have difficulty with identifying the main idea they should be taught how to locate the main idea (e .g ., often found in the first sentence or a repeating concept in the passage) .

• Students should be able to answer the who, what, when, where, and how questions of a story .

• Students should be able to retell stories they have read or listened to at their instructional levels .

• Students should have the skills to look back or reread a section if they don’t understand what they have read .

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Types of Activities to Implement Self-Questioning Wong & Jones (1982) developed a self-questioning strategy to assist students in comprehending reading passages . It is important that students are able to identify the main idea of the passage before using this strategy . The questions students are taught to ask themselves include: • What am I studying this passage for? • What is the main idea(s)? • What is a question I have about the main idea? • What is the answer to my question? • What previous knowledge can I use to gain more information?

Paraphrasing The Paraphrasing Strategy (Schumaker, Denton, & Deshler, 1993) is a comprehension strategy that helps students recall the main idea and details of passages read . The mnemonic for the Paraphrasing Strategy is RAP and the steps include: • Read a paragraph: students silently read a paragraph . • Ask yourself, “What are the main idea(s) and details?” After reading the paragraph, students

ask themselves “What were the main idea(s) and details? If needed, students should look back or reread the paragraph .

• Put the main idea and details in your own words: Students are required to put the main idea and details in their own words .

POSSE POSSE (Predict, Organize, Search, Summarize, and Evaluate) is a strategy that can be used with students in fourth grade and higher . The predict and organize steps are directed by the teacher prior to reading . • Predict – students are cued by saying “I predict that…” or “I’m remembering…” • Organize – students categorize their thoughts and organize them by saying “I think one

category may be…” and develop a semantic map . • A group leader is selected to facilitate the discussion during the Search and Summarize

phases . ◦ A section of the passage is read and discussed and then added to the new semantic map under the search section .

◦ The leader then asks questions to generate supporting details . Statements made by students might include “I think the main idea is…” or “My question about the main idea is…”

• Evaluation includes comparing, clarifying, and predicting . ◦ Students compare the map under “Organizing your thoughts” to the map under the “Summarize phase” by saying “I think we did (did not) predict this main idea .”

◦ Students clarify any new vocabulary or unclear information by asking “does anything need to be clarified?”

◦ Students predict what will happen in the next section .

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Keep in Mind • Most strategies will take 3 or more lessons before students are able to use the strategy

independently . • Students must be taught when and where to use the strategy . • Students must have mastery of the strategy and opportunities to apply the strategy in a variety

of settings and conditions for generalization to occur . • When teaching the strategies, text needs to be at an independent reading level . Emphasis is

on comprehension, not decoding .

Resources Gersten, R ., Baker, S ., Pugach, M ., Scanlon, D ., & Chard, D . (2001) . Contemporary research on

special education teaching. In V . Richardson (Ed .) Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed .), 695–722 .

Levy, S ., Coleman, M ., & Alsman, B . (2002) . Reading instruction for elementary students with emotional/behavioral disorders: What’s a teacher to do? Beyond Behavior, 11(3), 3–10 .

Mastropieri, M . A ., & Scruggs, T . E . (1997) . Best practices in promoting reading comprehension in students with learning disabilities: 1976 to 1996 . Remedial and Special Education, 18(4), 197–213 .

Schumaker, J . B ., Denton, P . H ., & Deshler, D . D . (1993) . The paraphrasing strategy (rev . ed .) (Learning Strategies Curriculum) . Lawrence: University of Kansas .

Swanson, P . N ., & De La Paz, S . (1998) . Teaching effective comprehension strategies to students with learning and reading disabilities . Intervention in School and Clinic, 33, 209–218 .

Wong, B . Y . L ., & Jones, W . (1982) . Increasing metacomprehension in learning disabled and normally achieving students through self-questioning training . Learning Disability Quarterly, 5, 228–240 .