The Definition and Application of Metacognition to the Teaching of Reading
Carol Gaul, 1996 Golden Apple Fellow
Our August resource on Metacognition is from Golden Apple Fellow, Carol Gaul. Carol defines and explores Metacognition and offers practical classroom methods on the subject for all teachers of elementary, high school, or college students. Her methods identified here have been successfully used in 4th Grade classrooms, as well as teacher training classes at Concordia University Chicago, where the activities were developed. Carol’s favorite website for teachers is: http://teacher.scholastic.com.
Carol says: “The process of reading can be very easily and logically divided into two main parts. They are Learning to Read and Reading to Learn. Once phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension take hold, and you have learned to read, it is time for Reading to Learn, which lasts for the rest of your life.”
When children have mastered the reading process, it is time for them to think about what happens when they read. Scholars have called this thinking, “Metacognition.” Metacognition is actually thinking about your thinking.
The exciting classroom world of Metacognition shows us how unique every student is. Students react differently to a story; they have different points of view. This world of Metacognition is quite a wonderful place; it is as big as you let it be; it is as big as all the thoughts that everyone in the room can imagine. Just the term alone lights up thoughts of BIG THINKING.”
Dr. Carol Gaul, a 1996 Golden Apple Fellow, was born, raised, and educated in Chicago, Illinois. She received her BS, MS, and EdD from Loyola University Chicago, where she specialized in the teaching of reading, and where she was honored as Outstanding LUC Education Graduate in 1999. She then earned another MS in Leadership and Curriculum and her Type 75 Certificate from Lewis University. At Dominican University, she completed the CPS Reading Specialist Program. Carol was an elementary and junior high teacher and reading coach for more than 20 years with the Chicago Public Schools and is presently Associate Professor at Concordia University Chicago in the Reading Specialist Graduate Program. Carol has also been an active member of the Chicago Area Writing Project that spreads good reading and writing ideas throughout Chicagoland. Carol is proud to say that she has five wonderful grandkids (who are avid readers)! Carol’s next goal is to “Work in the field of literacy in a rural town in the South.”