Statement of the Problem

Junior High School students' English reading comprehension has declined affecting
other subject areas which use English as the medium of instruction. Many students are
failing in many subject areas such as Science and Math because they lack
comprehension skills. Therefore, it is vital to help students develop metacognitive
strategies through an intervention to improve their reading comprehension skills. This
skill is essential for them to be able to understand the subject matter and excel not only
in English but in all subjects.

This study aims to answer the following questions:

1. What are some strategies that teachers can implement to improve students’
reading comprehension?
2. How effective are the strategies implemented in developing students’
metacognitive strategies?
3. What are the factors affecting the decline of students’ reading comprehension?
4. How do reading and comprehension impact other subject areas?
Suggestions:
1. mention the strategy

Theoretical framework

Reading comprehension

According to Grabe (2009) top-down model of comprehension presumes that the

reading process is guided not by decoding of letter and parsing of syntax and
semantics, but by a reader’s background knowledge and expectations. This means
that reading comprehension is where a reader constructs meaning from what s/he
already knows and expects from the text.

Flavell (1979) defines reading comprehension as the reader’s ability to think about
his/her reading and self-monitor for comprehension. Metacognition skills are taught
for students to read to learn and these also can be taught before, during, and after
reading by applying a variety of strategies. Teachers can help improve student
comprehension through the instruction of reading strategies such as predicting,
making connections, visualizing, inferring, questioning, and summarizing.

According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process

between the reader’s background knowledge and the text (Anderson, 1977). He
pointed out that every act of comprehension involves one’s knowledge of the world
as well.

Flavell’s definition best suits the objective of this study. Since the aim of the study is
to improve students’ reading comprehension, the use of higher-order thinking skills
such as predicting, making connections, visualizing, inferring, questioning, and
summarizing to improve their knowledge of the reading comprehension strategies.

Both Grabe and Anderson mention how readers’ background knowledge and
expectations help them construct the meaning of the text. Indeed, developing
background knowledge improves reading comprehension skills. However, the study
aims to provide strategies for reading comprehension. Therefore, Flavell’s definition
would be the most appropriate.

Flavell’s Metacognition Model

Flavell (1979) defined metacognition as a person’s awareness of their own cognition

and learning (metacognitive knowledge), and use that knowledge in regulating one’s
cognitive processes such as planning, monitoring, and control while learning,
performing tasks, or solving problems. Flavell’s model of cognitive monitoring
included metacognitive knowledge about one’s own thinking and thinking of others,
goal/task strategies, metacognitive experiences, cognitive and emotional thinking
experiences (experiences related to thinking), cognitive goals/tasks, and cognitive
strategies that help to reach cognitive goals.

Explain how the conceptual framework works in developing metacognitive strategies

Conceptual framework: develop metacognitive strategies

Flavell’s model is important in this study since cognitive strategies which include
planning, monitoring, and evaluation can help improve students’ reading
 comprehension skills. Students will be able to develop and apply problem-solving
strategies and transfer them to the new tasks. Metacognitive skills such as planning,
monitoring, control, and evaluation can be modeled children’s activities, encouraging
children to use strategies such as imagination, focusing of attention and evaluation
using visual criteria. This helps students to learn and apply metacognitive regulation
in practice not only in English but also in other subject areas.

Figure 1
Flavell’s Model of Metacognition

Review of Related Literature

This chapter presents the related literature and studies after the thorough and in-depth
search done by the researcher. It focuse on several aspects that will help the
development of this study . The study is generally concentrating on (aim of the study)
the feasibility of creating an online students system for Kalayaan NHS. The literatures of
this study comes from (ex. Books, journals, articles, electronic materials such as PDF or
E-book, and other exisiting thesis and dissertations, foreign and local that are believed
to be useful in the advancement of awareness concerning the study
Foreign Literature

Local Literature