The Cognitive Dimension: Assembling a Reading Toolbox

When we got into Their Eyes Were Watching God, I could not understand any of the talking. I had to remember back to Ms. Krebs’s class and just say, “Okay, this is how I need to focus.” So I went back into the book and I started going through it and started writing down, “Okay, this is probably what they meant, this is probably what they did not mean,” and just ask questions and try to answer them.

—Greg, grade 12 student

Earlier we introduced metacognitive conversation as a way for students to become aware of and articulate about their mental processes when they read. In this chapter, we introduce some of the specific cognitive strategies that teachers can embed in metacognitive routines to increase students’ abilities to improve comprehension. The real power of this work comes when students, like Greg, have learned and internalized cognitive strategies sufficiently to integrate and use them flexibly while learning academic content. Learning to monitor comprehension, adjust reading processes for a wide variety of purposes, and strategically use a broad range of cognitive tools—such as making connections, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing—helps students become stronger and more autonomous readers.

How can teachers help students learn to use, with increasing independence, these tools for making sense of various texts? And what trade-offs are involved when strategy instruction must be included in an already crowded course of study?

The time invested initially in teaching students high-leverage problem-solving strategies is time that does not necessarily displace content coverage over the long haul. Because strategy instruction is most effective when embedded in authentic subject area reading tasks,¹ students in Reading Apprenticeship classrooms learn problem-solving strategies in the context of the regular subject area curriculum, not by doing worksheet drills.

It is certainly true that as students begin explicitly practicing reading strategies, they move more slowly through the course content, but their comprehen-sion of what they are reading increases. As they gain confidence and facility in solving reading problems, this initial investment in strategy instruction begins to pay off. In effect, cognitive strategies instruction supports content learning. Students come to own the strategies, both in the context of their current coursework and down the road. As Greg says of his grade 12 encounter with Their Eyes Were Watching God, “I had to remember back to Ms. Krebs’s class.” And he did.

Making Problem Solving Explicit

Mostly I just read in school so I can make it. But I like to build things, so I read a lot of instructions. I put together a stroller for my baby brother, and I helped my dad put together a computer. Now I’m starting to build these [skateboard] ramps for my friends. But I’m not really reading for that one.

—Emerson, grade 8 student

Helping students assemble a toolbox of cognitive reading strategies often means starting from students’ sense of themselves as problem solvers in areas other than academics. Sometimes this competence is tacitly recognized; for example, when parents trust students to care for younger siblings, or employers give students responsibilities that require them to solve day-to-day work problems. At other times, students may not recognize or appreciate the problem solving that they accomplish all the time. Emerson, just quoted, does not recognize the problem solving he does to build strollers or computers or skateboard ramps. In school, he uses his problem-solving strategies to figure out what level of reading effort will be just enough “so I can make it.” By making students’ mastery of these implicit or even unrecognized cognitive strategies explicit for them, teachers can help students build confidence and motivation for solving the cognitive problems that come up when reading academic texts.

Community college teacher Cindy Hicks implements Reading Apprenticeship in her basic skills English 101 course. She helps her students recognize ways they have become competent problem solvers by asking them a survey question on the first day of class: “Describe a time when you learned something well.” Interestingly, students often cite an apprenticeship experience. Daniel wrote,

At first I was afraid to drive because I thought I could crash a car. My dad taught me how to drive, and I practiced a lot to improve my driving.

The practicing that Daniel describes, to improve his driving skills (and not crash), represents paying concerted attention to particular kinds of problem solving. Daniel’s focus and persistence, and his growing confidence in his ability to improve, can also serve him well in developing strategies for solving reading problems.

Cindy’s student Labelle, who is working for a real estate broker as well as attending school, reports that making real estate loans is something she learned to do well:

The broker who hired me gave me training that helped me quite a bit, and I became very good at it. My experience with learning to do loans gave me a lot of confidence.

Labelle’s on-the-job apprenticeship, learning the intricacies of refinance and purchase loans, has given her the confidence to enroll in community college and to envision transferring into a bachelor’s degree program.

These students and others in Cindy Hicks’s classes have dispositions and competencies to build on, and their teacher takes time to make them aware of how valuable those resources are. When she then engages students in metacognitive conversations to solve reading problems, students’ sense of themselves as competent problem solvers will have already been surfaced and validated.

Reference:

1. Conley, M. W. (2008). Cognitive strategy instruction for adolescents: What we know about the promise, what we don’t know about the potential.Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 84–108.

From Reading for Understanding, pp 191-193