If we want to read a text at a metacognitive level, we need to plan how we are going to decipher its meaning. We need to set a goal. In some cases, you may read a text with the intent of simply obtaining the literal information in the text. In other cases, may want to study mechanics of how a text is written in order to emulate it or use its strategies in your own writing.
For OUR purposes, is mastery of comprehension and a intelligent opinion about the text as a whole. We won’t necessarily get there in Level 1, but this is the first step to building the critical thinking skill you need to get to this point.
Cognitive reading strategies we will be using in this section are planning, highlighting, retention quizzing, and summarization.
Terms to Know
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Planning: In regards to metacognition, it is your awareness of your goals and intentions (Malone, 2020). It is knowing what you want out of a text. In this case, it is mastery of comprehension and a intelligent opinion about the text as a whole.
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Highlighting: Highlighting is a cognitive strategy that requires you to highlight or write down words and phrases from a text that stuck out to you (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). Though highlighting has limitations in regards to retention, the strategy is good for helping you keep your focus during practice to support selective attention and you retention of a text.
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Retention Quizzing: Retention quizzing refer to a set of questions that focus primarily on your ability to remember details from a text (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). These quizzes will help build better retention, and teach you to look for details that may be important for understanding the text's main idea.
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Prior Knowledge: Level 1 quizzes will ask you to predict, write down words that stuck out to you, and make connections to what you already knew before (Schmidt, Rothgangel, & Grube, 2015). Prior knowledge is knowledge that has already been encoded into your long-term memory. When we connect new information to old information, what you learn becomes meaningful and more easily remembered.
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Declarative Knowledge: Like prior knowledge, this is knowledge that you already have stored in your memory. It described "what" you know such as facts and information (Training Industry, 2017). To improve metacognition, you need to be aware and honest about what you know and what you don't know. You will see questions on Level 1 quizzes that require declarative knowledge.
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Summary: A brief statement that encompasses the main points of a text. At the end of a Level 1 quiz, you will be asked to select the summary that best fits the text. For every text you are trying to read meaningfully, you should be able to summarize in your own words. Not only does summary demonstrate your understanding of a text, but in addition, it helps make the information you have received meaningful and more retainable.
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Recommended tutorial on summaries: ​
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The Speaker:
The speaker in a poem is much like the narrator in a book or article. When questions refer to the speaker, they are asking about the person narrating the poem.
The Recipient/Subject:
The recipient or subject of the poem is whomever the speaker is addressing in his/her poems.
Main Idea:
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When we refer to the main idea of a poem, we are generally asking about its central message or theme. A main idea can be a poet's observation or argument depending upon his/her topic.
Selective Attention:
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When we refer to selective attention, we are referring to your ability to focus on a given task (Stevens & Bavelier, 2012). In order to build metacognitive awareness, you need to be able to control and be aware of your ability to focus on a piece of text.
Tutorial for Level 1
Step 1: Planning and Predicting Phase
When we come across a text, the first thing we want to do is decide what we want from that text. Do we want to be entertained, be informed, or be persuaded? For our purposes in this program, our goal will always be mastery of comprehension and evaluation of a text.
Comprehension begins as soon as we read the title of a text. The title of a piece sets us up for the central message of a text or the main idea, as the title communicates what the author is hoping to emphasize in their work. For example, take this title: "Why All Guys Cheat, Fresh Insight.” We can make some predictions:
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the article is on why men cheat
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the author already has a negative view of men
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the author is hoping to explain why a problem occurs, but is not really attempting to solve the problem.
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Apply:
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Take a look at the TIME magazine cover. What predictions can you make about the article on Wikileaks based on the title?
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Level 1 Quizzes
Here are a couple more tutorial quizzes. Once you have gone through the quizzes in the Levels 1-3 tutorials, you begin to take different courses found in Mixed Practice, which will test you on everything you've learned in the tutorials.