The Reader as a meaning fixer. A practical example of direct instruction in metacognitive strategies

Abstract

The metaphor of the reader as a meaning “fixer”, developed by the metacognitive view of reading, Flavell (1976) and Brown (1978) identifies the type of reader to be shaped in schools today, in the domain of reading comprehension development. On one hand, the suggested meaning fixer is the one who is able to build knowledge of self as a reader and also of aspects of the reading task; and on the other, is proficient in the use of comprehension strategies and in the comprehension monitoring process of reading. In order for the schools to shape this type of reader, primary and compulsory secondary school teachers have to equip students with a “toolbox” of strategies to help them monitor the meaning and repair any comprehension failure they came across, as LOE suggests. Those tools are but metacognitive strategies, playing an important role in making sense of printing words, like authentic mental processes for the development of children’s reading comprehension monitoring, as held by the OECD Programme for International Student Reading Competence Assessment PISA (2009). Considering this, the purpose of this article is to provide a practical example of strategy instruction and classroom activities, using the strategy “We clarify the meaning”, to teach readers how to shed light on words and portions of text they are unaware of its meaning. We conclude that explicit direct strategy instruction builds knowledge and metacognitive awareness in the process of comprehension monitoring (Calero, 2011). The strategy has been segmented in five components which represent portions of the metacognitive knowledge to be monitored gradually by the students. Also, the components instruction includes modelling, working in groups, guided and independent practice in three phases: a) Teacher thinks aloud introducing the strategy and the meaning of each component; b) Students refine the use of the strategy components during selected reading group activities; c) Students self-assessment and goal-setting, noticing what component of this strategy they do well, and what they need to improve upon, in order to restore the meaning