Reading Strategies Metacognitive Checklist

There are many ways to become more aware of your 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

Rhetorical/Metacognitive Reading Strategies Checklist, Kelly Shea

Reading Strategies Checklist

1. How do titles, first paragraphs, and topic sentences set up expectations for (1) why the author wrote the piece, (2) what the subject is, (3) what the author’s attitude toward the subject is, (4) who the author’s audience is?
2. Test out your assumptions from #1 as you read the entire essay.
3. Provide an adequate summary of the essay in less than 100 words.
4. Evaluate how effective is the evidence in support of the argument.
5. Evaluate how credible the author seems and explain what the author does to seem credible.
6. Explain how a passage from an essay connects to the larger argument of the essay.
7. Explain how specific words or phrases relate to the purpose of a paragraph and even the larger article.
8. Recognize figurative language and what purpose it serves in relationship to larger idea/purpose.
9. Recognize when your understanding of a reading requires knowledge of a larger cultural or historical context that you don’t know much about—and then briefly learn about that context.