The Benefits of Informed Instruction for Children's Reading Awareness and Comprehension Skills

PARIs, ScoTTrr G., and JACOBS, JANIS E. The Benefits of Informed Instruction for Children's Reading Awareness and Comprehension Skills. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 2083-2093. This study examines children's reading awareness and comprehension skills as examples of the developmental and instructional relations between children's metacognition and performance. 8and 10-year olds were interviewed about their knowledge of reading tasks and strategies in the fall and spring. A scale of reading awareness was constructed and related to children's performance on several reading tasks. During the year half of each group received 4 months of classroom instruction on how, when, and why to use reading strategies to enhance comprehension. Pretest correlations revealed a significant relation between children's level of reading awareness and comprehension skills. Furthermore, comparisons between pretests and posttests revealed that the metacognitive instruction significantly increased children's reading awareness and their use of comprehension strategies. The study clearly showed that (a) children who are more aware of the nature of reading tasks and strategies also score higher on tests of reading comprehension and (b) informed instruction in the classroom can enhance both awareness and comprehension skills.