Reading Competency and Metacognitive Knowledge in Primary School Children: An Explorative Survey

Reading comprehension is a process of interaction between the characteristics of the text, the reader and the reading context. In a reader, numerous cognitive processes interactively contribute to comprehension. It is recognized as an important skill, is the basis of the more general study skills, on which depends largely, the educational and academic future of each student. Since learning from longer texts causes great difficulties for many students summarizing is one of the key strategies for good reading comprehension. Summarizing is one of the reading strategies that enables students to more deeply understand the text and it is an indicator of understanding at the same time. Based on these considerations, the ability to synthesise was evaluated in a group of pupils, aged 8 to 9 years, with typical development. Furthermore, the comprehension skills of the text were measured, with reference to the ability of semantic and lexical inference, to vocabulary skills and to metacognitive skills, in order to identify the relations between summarizing and students’ general reading competency and metacognitive knowledge about reading.