Gifted Education Intemational2000 Vol IS, pp 45-63 ©2000 A B Academic Publishers

the influence of metacognitive instruction of reading and writing strategies on positive transfer The results of two studies support the contention that teaching metacognitive strategies with the aid of software packages enhances positive transfer of reading comprehension and writing skills. The first study investigated reading comprehension. 140 5th graders, very able learners, were divided into 4 groups which received, respectively, 15 hours of: (a) metacognitive instruction +dozes; (b) traditional instruction of dozes; (c) metacognitive instruction of complete texts and (d) traditional instruction of complete texts. The second study focused on teaching writing skills. 136 7th graders, very able learn-ers, were divided into 4 groups which received, respectively, 48 hours of (a) metacognitive instruction plus Nvo, a writing-skills software package; (b) metacognitive instruction plus Qtext, a word proces-sor; (c) traditional instruction plus Nvo and (d) traditional instruction plus Qtext. Results showed a greater improvement in learning and positive transfer in the group which received metacognitive instruction and used Nvo. The results of both studies show the efficiency of teaching reading and writ-ing processes metacognitively, in integrating computerized environments. Theoretical Background Metacognition is described as the knowledge that the person has about his own cognitive processes and products (Flavell, 1976). Customarily, metacognition ("thinking about thinking") is divided into two main compo-nents (Baker & Brown, 1984a), to wit, metacognitive knowledge and management of cognition. Metacognitive Knowledge Metacognitive knowledge subsumes three categories of variables (Flavell1979, 1993): a) self-knowledge, which refers to how learners perceive themselves as cognitive individu-als; (b) task knowledge, which deals with the various problem solving means that a learn-er has acquired; (c) strategy knowledge, a learner's information about strategies an