Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of metacognitive strategy reading instruction on sixth grade students' content reading comprehension. Forty-one students in two sixth grade social studies classes participated in the study. Twenty students in the treatment social studies class were taught the purpose and value, as well as the techniques of self-monitoring of the summarizing strategy to help them recall and organize key information from their social studies textbook.
Twenty-one students in the control group were taught summarizing as a cognitive reading strategy without the metacognitive components of value, purpose, and selfmonitoring. The two social studies classes had no significant differences on pre-test measures of formal and informal reading comprehension. After a 1 0-week study period, the posttest results of the two groups were compared to determine the effects of the strategy instruction on the students' content reading comprehension.
Significant differences were found on the posttest scores of metacognitive strategy knowledge and informal reading comprehension measures between the treatment and the control group that could be attributed to the metacognitive strategy instruction. Metacognitive strategy instruction was the most effective in increasing the reading comprehension of high-ability treatment students, although it also increased the content comprehension of the low and average ability readers. These findings suggest that metacognitive strategy instruction including the value, purpose, and self-monitoring of the summarizing strategy is more effective in increasing reading comprehension than the summarizing strategy alone. Students in the treatment group were observed beginning to use the summarizing strategy independently in their social studies class.
Thirteen students in each class were interviewed about their use of reading strategies, their strengths and weaknesses as readers, and their opinion and approaches to the social studies textbook. These same students were observed reading the social studies textbook using a think-aloud procedure and in their social studies class, to better determine if there were any differences between strategies mentioned and those used in the process of reading. Students in both the control and treatment groups mentioned the use of more pre-reading strategies than they actually used while reading. These students used more during and after reading strategies while reading in their social studies class. / 2031-01-01
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/32760 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Ferguson, Jean Clarke |
| Publisher | Boston University |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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