Type of Culminating Activity Master of Arts in Education,
Curriculum and Instruction Curriculum, Instruction, and
Foundational Studies Keith W. Thiede Metacognitive knowledge has
been linked to use of metacognitive strategies and effectiveness
in reading (e.g., Flavell, 1979). In the present research, I
evaluated whether teaching three metacognitive strategies
(planning, monitoring, and evaluating) would (a) improve English
as a Second Language (ESL) students’ metacognitive knowledge,
which in turn would (b) improve their comprehension. Eight non-
English speaking students completed the Metacognitive Awareness
of Reading Strategy Inventory (MARSI) (Mokhtari & Reichard,
2002) and a reading test at the beginning of a reading-writing
course and again at the end of the course. The results revealed
an increase from pretest to posttest in all three areas of
metacognitive knowledge: global strategies, problem-solving
strategies, and support strategies with statistically
significant differences in each reading scale.