Awareness of reading strategy use and reading comprehension among poor and good readers

Abstract

The present study was designed to explore the primary school students' awareness of reading strategies and to identify possible differences between poor and good readers, in terms of frequency and efficiency. Furthermore, it aimed at exploring the relation between reading strategy awareness and reading comprehension. Eighteen poor readers and eighteen good readers, aged between 11 and 12, which were selected from a total of 201 sixth grade students, participated in the study. The study was conducted by using retrospective interviews as the basic instrument, in combination with reading test scores. Both groups utilized a variety of cognitive strategies, though it was revealed that poor readers, on the one hand, were less aware of the more sophisticated cognitive strategies, and on the other hand they reported a limited number of metacognitive strategies in comparison with good readers. In addition, both cognitive and metacognitive strategy awareness made a unique contribution to reading comprehension, beyond and above the effects of reading accuracy and reading speed.