An Analysis of Students' Self-Monitoring in First- and Second-Grade Classrooms

ABSTRACT

Students' verbalizations were examined to identify instances of self-instruction (i.e., use of relevant knowledge and skills) and self-monitoring (i.e., task-relevant self-talk) during reading and mathematics in a suburban elementary school. The study included 56 students randomly selected across achievement levels and all special education students mainstreamed in seven classrooms. Of the 16,115 student verbalizations, 53% were self-instructive; 28% of these statements involved self-monitoring. Differences in self-monitoring were found for boys versus girls. The self-monitoring of students who perceived their cognitive ability to be low was significantly different. Tests of difference in self-monitoring by achievement rank yielded no difference, but significant differences were found for two types of subcategories of self-monitoring, self-interrogations that involved either (a) subject matter knowledge or (b) error checking.