The present study was designed to explore the primary school studentsÂ’ awareness of reading
strategies and to identify possible differences between poor and good readers, in terms of frequency and
efficiency. Furthermore, it aimed at exploring the relation between reading strategy awareness and reading
comprehension. Eighteen poor readers and eighteen good readers, aged between 11 and 12, which were selected
from a total of 201 sixth grade students, participated in the study. The study was conducted by using
retrospective interviews as the basic instrument, in combination with reading test scores. Both groups utilized a
variety of cognitive strategies, though it was revealed that poor readers, on the one hand, were less aware of the
more sophisticated cognitive strategies, and on the other hand they reported a limited number of metacognitive
strategies in comparison with good readers. In addition, both cognitive and metacognitive strategy awareness
made a unique contribution to reading comprehension, beyond and above the effects of reading accuracy and
reading speed.
Key words: reading comprehension, awareness of cognitive strategies, awareness of metacognitive strategies, poor readers
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