Making thinking visible: metacognitive teacher talk in small-group reading instruction for upper elementary multilingual learsners

This study examined how elementary teachers’ metacognitive scaffolding during small-group reading instruction varied across literacy domains and students’ initial proficiency. Drawing on the multidimensional Metacognitive Support Framework, we analyzed 33 lessons from nine teachers implementing the same structured reading comprehension intervention for Grades 3 to 5 multilingual learners. Teacher talk was coded across metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive skill, and instructional delivery, and patterns were compared across groups defined by students' initial proficiency in two literacy domains: (a) metalinguistic outcomes, including morphological awareness and text structure awareness, and (b) knowledge-based outcomes, including vocabulary and content knowledge. Quantitative comparisons showed domain-specific patterns. In the metalinguistic domain, teachers of lower-initial students used more explicit planning talk and strategic modeling, whereas teachers of higher-initial students used more personal and conditional knowledge prompts. In the knowledge-based domain, teachers of lower-initial students used more monitoring talk and marginally more strategy knowledge talk, whereas teachers of higher-initial students used more conditional knowledge talk. Qualitative analysis showed that similar discourse moves served different instructional functions across metalinguistic and knowledge-based tasks. Findings suggest that metacognitive scaffolding can be understood as a differentiated discourse practice calibrated to students’ initial proficiency and the cognitive demands of literacy instruction.