Reading Metacognition Checklist for Students

There are many ways to you to become more aware of their own reading behaviors and be able to monitor and make decisions about them. Specifically, you can

• recognize the reading strategies you do use--such as skimming, predicting, or questioning--and be aware of when you use them
• learn new strategies and evaluate them
• recognize that different readings have different genres and levels of difficulty and may require different levels of prior knowledge on your part
• be aware of the purpose you're reading and vary your reading strategies accordingly
• select appropriate strategies for different reading situations
• develop standards for comprehension failure, so that you can recognize when you don’t understand what you’re reading?
• recognize when any of the following makes a difference in your comprehension:
  * not understanding a word
  * not relating the idea to your own knowledge
  * not recognizing contradictions within the text
  * not recognizing when you don’t see how the parts of a sentence are related
  * not recognizing when you don’t see the relationship between sentences or parts of the essay
  * not recognizing when there is information or perspectives missing