STRATEGIES AND METACOGNITIVE SKILLS

PAPER
In Partial Fulfilment of The Assignment of Theory of Reading

Lecturer: Dr. Alfan Zuhairi, M.Pd

By:
Fithriyah Rahmawati NPM. 21502073071
Henni Herawati NPM. 21502073073
Mohammad Sadik NPM. 21502073081

ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF MALANG

GRADUATE PROGRAM
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

2016
 In some literature, reading skill is difined as visual and auditory processes
of decoding, and attributes the rest of the text-mediated meaning-making endeavor
to cognitive or comprehension skills. Before addressing the role of reading
strategies and metacognitivr skills, this paper below will define the characteristics
that distinguish skills, strategies and metacognitive skills.

A. Definition of Strategies, Skills and Metacognition

Wellman explained the term strategy as a deliberate or intentional attempts
to help oneself (1988:5). However, Richards et al (1985) defined strategy as
procedures used in learning, thinking, etc which serve as a way of reaching a goal.
Other researchers, such as Oxford (1990), view strategies as the steps taken by
students to enchance their own learning in general, with metacognitive strategies
being one of several categories of learning strategies available to the learner. Paris
et al (1996) also define strategies as some actions selected deliberately to achieve
particular goals.
There is a slight amount of confusion in the literature as to what
distinguishes a skill from a strategy. Paris et al. (1996) states that skills refer to
information-processing techniques that are automatic at the level of recognizing
phoneme-grapheme correspondence. They are applied to text unconsciously. He
said that an emerging skill can become a strategy when it is used intentionally.
From those definitions, it can be inferred that strategies represent
conscious decisions taken by the reader while skills are deployed unconsciously.
Indeed, strategies are more efficient and developmentally advanced when they
become generated and applied automatically as skills.
There is a relationship between strategies, skills and metacognitive in
comprehending a text. Metacognition is an important concept in cognitive theory.
It includes taking conscious control of learning, planning and selecting strategies,
monitoring the progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness
of learning strategies, and changing learning behaviors and strategies when
necessary. (Ridley, D.S., Schutz, P.A., Glanz, R.S. & Weinstein, C.E., 1992) .
Another metaphor for the relationship between metacognition and skills
has been developed by Crowly et al (1997). They discussed that metacognitive
mechanism provide the assets required to explain the explicit part of cognition.
These mechanism are adaptable and responsive to the particular goals of problem
solving.

B. Basic Reading Comprehension Strategies

A reading strategy can be described as any interactive process that has the
goal of obtaining meaning from connected text, and reading skills operate within
the context of such reading strategies as well as metacognitive. Those reading
strategies are : predicting, confirming, monitoring, reflecting and evaluating. They
operate to lessen demands on working memory by facilitating comprehension
processing.
Paris et al (1996) present text-processing strategies promoting
comprehension that are applied prior to, during and after reading. Pre-reading
strategies involve several of academic study skill. For example: setting
purpose,asking questions, skimming and scanning etc. While-reading strategies,
reader uses many recursive on-line strategies in constructing meaning, such as:
identifying the main idea, making inferences, checking comprehension through out
reading activity, etc. Post-reading strategies tend to be task, purpose and affect
determined. The reader is simply attempting to finish an assignment and they also
be motivated to learn content from the text and to complete a particular assignment
or project. This table below presents examples of Pre-reading strategies, While-
reading strategies, and Post-reading strategies.
C. Metacognition and Automaticity in Application of Reading Strategies
Metacognitive play a strategic role in such problem-solving cognitive
activities as reading comprehension,writing, language acquisition and logical
reasoning (Flavel et al. 2002). Metacognition is different from cognition in that
cognitive skills help one to perform a task, whereas metacognitive skills help one
understand and regulate the performance on the task (Scraw:1988).
Some researcher argue that metacognitive knowledge preceds
metacognitive contol. In this view, learners mus first become aware of structures
of text, knowledge of tast, possible strategies, and their own characteristics as
learners, before they can strategically and efficiently control the processing of
those text factors (Armbruster et al. 1983). Such a view of metacognitive control
indicates that knowledge of cognition include three components: declarative
knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge.
Declarative knowledge includes knowledge about ourselves and our
learning, about what factors affect us, and about the structure of tasks and
activities. Procedural knowledge includes knowledge about strategies such as
guessing words in context,summarizing or looking for the main idea in the text.
Conditional knowledge refers to the knowledge we have about why and how to use
different strategies.
Metacognition in reading represents the planning, monitoring and
evaluating of the reading process, where planning involves identifying a purpose
for reading and selecting particular actions to achieve the readers goals,
monitoring involves regulating and redirecting the readers efforts during the
course of reading to accomplish that goal, and evaluation involves the reader
appraising her or his cognitive ability to carry out the task.

D.