PERSONAL READING STRATEGIES OF COLLEGE FRESHMEN PLACED IN A DEVELOPMENTAL READING CLASS

Abstract

Research supports the importance of metacognitive awareness as a means of monitoring and promoting reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to examine the reading habits including comprehension strategies college students use when reading, and the impact those strategies have on reading ability. Comprehension strategies were defined as conscious processes students use to understand and process what they read. A 26 question survey was developed that incorporated a list of comprehension strategies and from the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) developed by Mokhtari and Reichard (2002). Most of the college freshman in this study appeared not to have the comprehension and metacognition skills needed to strategically engage and interact with academic texts. Based on these results, the authors suggest that students placed in developmental reading courses at colleges and universities would benefit from explicit and systematic teaching of comprehension and metacognition strategies to understand the complex and critical text that post-secondary education requires.

Keywords: literacy, metacognitive awareness, explicit teaching

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