Abstract

ELOSUA, M.R et al. Improving reading comprehension: From metacognitive intervention on strategies to the intervention on working memory executive processes. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2013, vol.12, n.spe5, pp.1425-1438. ISSN 1657-9267.

Many students may read fluently but have difficulties constructing meaning from texts. Difficulties with reading comprehension have many implications at school. In particular, problems understanding texts interfere with studying and learning from text. Reading comprehension has improved in the last 30 years focusing on intervention programs that work with strategies in which metacog-nition plays a crucial role. However, recent years have seen relevant advances in the study of the relationship between working memory (WM), particularly executive processes, and reading comprehension. In this paper, we present how the last 20 years of our research has evolved regarding metacognitive intervention from text comprehension strategies, as the main idea and summarization to the intervention on WM's executive processes during reading. Thus, our more recent empirical data has shown that text comprehension can be improved after specific training on the executive functions of working memory (e.g., focusing, switching, connecting and updating mental representations, and the inhibition of irrelevant information) in Primary school students.

Keywords : Reading comprehension; text comprehension strategies; metacognition; training working memory; executive functions; Neuropsychology; Cognitive Science; Development.

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