Which term describes thinking about one's own thinking?

Which term describes thinking about one's own thinking?

• A. Metacognition
• B. Phonemic awareness
• C. Decoding
• D. Lexicon

Answer: (A)

Thinking about one's own thinking is metacognition. This means being aware of how you learn, monitoring what you understand as you work, and adjusting strategies to improve learning. In practice, a student who notices they're not grasping a paragraph might pause to predict what will come next, reread, or try a new approach like asking questions or summarizing what they read. This reflective process helps guide study and comprehension, especially in early learning where teachers can prompt metacognitive thinking with questions like “What strategy could help you understand this part?” Phonemic awareness focuses on recognizing and manipulating individual sounds in spoken language, not on planning or evaluating thinking. Decoding is about turning written letters into sounds to read a word. Lexicon refers to the mental dictionary of words and their meanings. These are different skills from thinking about thinking, which is what metacognition captures.

Thinking about one's own thinking is metacognition. This means being aware of how you learn, monitoring what you understand as you work, and adjusting strategies to improve learning. In practice, a student who notices they're not grasping a paragraph might pause to predict what will come next, reread, or try a new approach like asking questions or summarizing what they read. This reflective process helps guide study and comprehension, especially in early learning where teachers can prompt metacognitive thinking with questions like “What strategy could help you understand this part?”

Phonemic awareness focuses on recognizing and manipulating individual sounds in spoken language, not on planning or evaluating thinking. Decoding is about turning written letters into sounds to read a word. Lexicon refers to the mental dictionary of words and their meanings. These are different skills from thinking about thinking, which is what metacognition captures.