CHAPTER II

Literary Review

This chapter contains the review of related literature and studies, definition of

terms and end notes for this chapter.

Review of Related Literature

Studies on reading strategies maintain that teaching strategies can facilitate

students reading comprehension Using strategies well can foster and lead to students’

autonomous learning, especially for students who performed less well on academic fields

indicate that developmental students showed significant improvement in a teacher-made

reading comprehension test and a standardized reading test, as well as a significant

growth was found using cognitive, metacognitive, and affective strategies in their study.

(Caverly, et.al 2004).

Metacognitive awareness is knowledge about the appropriate actions one takes in

order to achieve a particular goal (Liberto, et.al 1989). When applied to reading, it can be

defined as “the knowledge of the readers’ cognition relative to the reading process and

the self-control mechanisms they use to monitor and enhance comprehension” (Sheorey

& Mokhtari, 2001). Metacognitive awareness of reading strategies can help students to

understand not only what strategies they can use (declarative knowledge) or how they

should use them (procedural knowledge) but also why, when, and where they are

supposed to use them at a particular stage, and how to evaluate their efficacy (conditional

knowledge), along with awareness of the purpose of reading that might trigger particular
strategies). Such an approach is likely to lead students eventually to become skilled

readers. It has been suggested, students without metacognitive approaches are essentially

learners without direction or opportunity to review their progress, accomplishments, and

future learning directions” (Russo, & Küpper, 1985). The relationship of cognitive and

metacognitive strategy used to EFL reading achievement test performance and found that

a) the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies had a positive relationship to the

reading test performance; and b) highly successful test takers reported significantly

higher metacognitive strategy use than the moderately successful ones who in turn

reported higher use of these strategies than the unsuccessful test takers. This literature

review will define reading and

and present two differing views on the reading process. The Early Reading Intervention

program and the Reading Recovery program are described and compared in consideration

of the most recent research on components of effective programs for young struggling

readers. Implications for reading instruction are also provided and government

intervention in this area is also discussed.

The last decade has brought a growing consensus on the range of skills that serve

as the foundation for reading and writing ability .To become a skilled reader, children

need a rich language and conceptual knowledge base, a broad and deep vocabulary, and

verbal reasoning abilities to understand messages that are conveyed through print.

Children also must develop code-related skills, an understanding that spoken words are

composed of smaller elements of speech (phonological awareness); the idea that letters

represent these sounds (the alphabetic principle), the many systematic correspondences

9
between sounds and spellings, and a repertoire of highly familiar words that can be easily

and automatically .

The readers often use strategies that reflect their preferred learning styles. For

example, readers with an analytic learning style use strategies such as contrastive

analysis, while readers with a global style use strategies that help them find the big

picture (i.e., guessing, scanning, predicting). She further suggests that students can stretch

beyond their learning style to use a variety of valuable strategies that were initially

uncomfortable to them. However, such strategy training may lead to “style wars”

between teachers and students (Scarcella and Oxford, 1992)

Additionally, included within are a biography of Marie Clay, the founder of

Reading Recovery, and the biographies of Dr. Simmons and Dr. Kame'enui, founders of

Project Optimize/Early Reading Intervention. Knowledge about metacognitive strategies

refers to the reader’s knowledge about the executive processes he or she employs before,

during, and after reading. Such executive strategies are considered by many educators as

crucial for reading comprehension. 

Metacognitive knowledge refers to three variables:  person, task, and

strategy.  The person variable in metacognitive knowledge “encompasses everything that

you could come to believe about the nature of yourself and other people as cognitive

processors” The variable of task defines the information available to you while you are

working.  The variable of strategy under metacognitive knowledge refers to the goals or

sub-goals a person acquires during cognitive functioning.  Metacognitive experiences are

situational, variable relative to time, affected by metacognitive knowledge, and can add,
delete, or revise a person’s knowledge base.  Goals or tasks are the objectives within

cognition and actions or strategies are the behaviors that work to achieve cognition

(Flavell, 1979)

Related Studies

Schema and Proposition Theory. Schema as the organized knowledge that one

already has about people, places, things, and events. The schema theory involves an

interaction between the reader’s own knowledge and the text, which results in

comprehension. This schema, as Gunning defined, can be very broad, such a schema for

natural disasters, or more narrow, such as a schema for a hurricane. Each schema is

"filed" in an individual compartment and stored there depending on how extensive their

"files" become, their degree of reading comprehension may vary. Gunning & Kitao

(1990)

The final explanation of comprehension we would like to discuss is the

Propositional Theory. This involves the reader constructing a main idea or macrostructure

as they process the text. These main ideas are organized in a hierarchical fashion with the

most important things given the highest priority to be memorized (Gunning, 1996).

Reading Strategies and its Application by EFL Learners. Studies instruction, he was

asked to take a reading comprehension test with time limit, and the test was composed of

two articles (length from 80~85 words), followed by some multiple choice questions.

These two articles were excerpted from the Far East General English Proficiency Test

(beginning level), which was a little beyond Wang’s current level. The result of Wang’s

strategy use before reading strategy instruction indicated that Wang, as a struggling adult
EFL learner, had basically some awareness of strategies and was able to use them when

reading English texts. In the test, he used more cognitive strategies than testing and

metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies, which accounted for 77.77 % (almost

78%) of his strategies use, involved word-by-word translation, meaningful translation,

underlying keywords, guessing meaning from the context, word association, and

inferring, while metacognitive and testing strategies, accounted for 2.78 % (almost 3%)

and 19.45 % respectively, involved self-correction, eliminating unrelated answers and

looking for main points in details.

Metacognitive Awareness and Reading Strategy Use of ESL Students. This study

explored the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies used among F.3 English as a

Second Language (ESL) students enrolled in a band 1 secondary school in Hong Kong.

Usage as well as strategic knowledge of reading strategies of high and low English

proficiency students were compared quantitatively and qualitatively.

In the quantitative portion of the study, 37 students responded to the

Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies. In the qualitative portion of the study,

four participants (2 female and 2 male) from the high proficiency group and four

participants (2 female and 2 male) from the low proficiency group participated in a semi-

structured interview, which aimed to elicit their strategic knowledge in reading English.

Results revealed that Hong Kong ESL students on the whole used a wide range of

reading strategies.

Moreover, their utilization of reading strategies seemed to be confined to their

limited lexical and vocabulary knowledge in ESL reading. Based on the findings, some
practical implications for ESL reading-strategy instruction are drawn. Limitations of this

study and recommendations for further research were discussed.

Definition Of Terms

Metacognitive Awareness - Metacognitive awareness means being aware of how you

think. refers to awareness of one's own knowledge—what one does and doesn't know—

and one's ability to understand, control, and manipulate one's cognitive processes

Reading Strategies are purposeful, cognitive actions that students take when they

are reading to help them construct and maintain meaning. Reading successfully goes

well beyond fluency and word recognition and relies heavily upon comprehension of text.

Teacher is a person that teaches something .The respondents of the said study.

Sulivan High School is the place wherein the respondents were teaching.

Reading comprehension - To understand repair manuals, product updates or recalls,

and reports from other team members, it is important to have good reading

comprehension skills
 End notes in Chapter II
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4
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Sheorey & Mokhtari, Flavell, J. H..1981. Cognitive monitoring reading. In W.

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