Metacognitive Strategies for Reading Comprehension in Basic Education Students

Abstract

The objective of this review article was to determine how metacognitive strategies improve reading comprehension in Basic Education students, for which it was proposed to search for and select the recent scientific investigations regarding metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension. Sixty papers published between 2015 and 2020 in indexed journals that address metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension were analyzed. For the choice of articles, four tables were used aligned to what was established in the flow diagram of the Prisma protocol. It was found that 70% of articles were based on metacognition theory, 15% on constructivist theory and the other 15% on other theories. It was evidenced that 50% of the studies belong to South America, while 25% to Asia and 25% to Europe. Metacognitive strategies help improve reading comprehension in elementary school students, favor self-regulation during the reading process. The role of teachers is very important for the use of appropriate and diverse strategies, techniques in order to strengthen learning and reading comprehension. The problem of reading comprehension is also manifested in the study of foreign languages. The application of metacognitive strategies programs or workshops highly favored reading comprehension, and their application in the reading development phases were planning, supervision and evaluation, which helped to significantly improve the comprehension of texts.