If you had walked into my classroom a few years ago, you would have seen a very eager teacher who jumped in the second a child struggled.
A student stuck on a word? I’d say it for them.
A puzzled face during Math? I’d rush in with a hint.
A blank page during writing? I’d start suggesting ideas.
I was helping, or at least I thought I was. Over time, I realised something uncomfortable: my students were often waiting for my thinking instead of discovering their own. That realisation was the beginning of my journey with metacognition.
Metacognition sounds like a big word, but at its heart it simply means thinking about our thinking—noticing what our mind is doing, how it reacts, and what we can do when it gets stuck.
Discovering Metacognition (and Why It Matters)
When I first read cognitive scientist John Flavell’s description of metacognition as being aware of one’s own thinking processes, it felt like someone had finally named what I wanted for my learners.
Research from the Education Endowment Foundation later showed that explicitly teaching metacognitive strategies can lead to significant additional progress in learning, especially for younger children. That made me sit up straighter. This wasn’t just a nice idea; it was powerful and proven.
Around that time, I was reading Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. His idea of two systems of thinking—one fast and intuitive, the other slow and deliberate, gave me language for what I was already seeing in my classroom. I could see the “fast system” in every rushed answer and quick guess, and the “slow system” in those precious moments when a child paused and said, “Wait… let me think.”
I realised that metacognition is really about teaching children to call on that slower, more reflective system on purpose.
How I Brought It Into Our Classroom
I didn’t start with a grand plan. I started with small shifts.
I changed my own language.
Instead of always acting like I had everything figured out, I began to think aloud:
• “I’m not sure I understood that. Let me reread.”
• “My brain is jumping to an answer. I’m going to slow it down.”
• “I made a mistake here. I want to see why I made it.”
Letting children hear my inner voice, my confusion, corrections, and choices made it safe for them to talk about theirs.
We built three shared questions and placed them where everyone could see:
• Before learning: What is my plan?
• During learning: How is it going?
• After learning: What did I learn about myself?
We began using these questions in real time: before a reading task, in the middle of a maths challenge, and after a writing session. Slowly, our language started to change.
In my classroom, I began hearing:
• “What strategy should I try now?”
• “This didn’t work, so let me change my plan.”
• “I think I know why I made that mistake.”
That’s when I knew metacognition was no longer just a word in a planner—it was alive in the room.
The Day a Seven-Year-Old Slowed Down His Brain
One morning, during a reading workshop, my student Kiaan was stuck on a tricky sentence. His shoulders tensed, his eyes darted over the words, and I could sense his frustration rising.
My old instinct was to rescue him. Instead, I waited.
After a long pause, he looked up and said:
“Miss Sharel, my brain is talking too fast. I need to slow it down.”
He took a deep breath, reread the sentence, and then smiled.
“Okay. Now I can think.”
A seven-year-old had just modelled metacognition more beautifully than any definition: he noticed his own mind and chose to adjust its pace. In that moment, I realised children don’talways need our answers, but they often need time and language to notice their own thinking.
The Power of “Yet”: Yahvi’s Story
Another child, Yahvi, once stared at a blank page and whispered, “I can’t make stories.” I could see it in her body, the way her shoulders dropped. This wasn’t just about writing, it was about who she believed she was.
Over the next few weeks, we kept coming back to one question: “What helps your thinking?”Together, we noticed that ideas came more easily to her when she had a quiet moment first, when she could see a picture in her mind, or when she talked her ideas out with a friend. We began to name these not as “delays” but as thinking steps.
A few weeks later, when we revisited story writing, she looked at her empty page and said:
“I can’t make stories… yet. First I need time to think. Then I imagine the picture in my mind.”
That one word “yet” felt like a celebration, but what moved me even more was what came after it. She wasn’t only describing a task; she was describing her own process, the conditions her brain needed and the steps she planned to take. That is the quiet power of metacognition: it gives children both the language and the courage to grow.
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Routines That Help Make Thinking Visible
A few simple practices now anchor metacognition in our classroom:
• Teacher think-alouds so children hear how a grown-up manages confusion.
• Reflection prompts like “What helped you today?” or “Where did your thinking change?”
• Strategy charts we build together: reread, chunk, visualize, ask questions, use clues—so students can point to what they tried.
• Self-assessment that asks, “How did I use my strategies?” not just “Did I finish?”
None of this is perfect or finished. It’s a work in progress, just like our thinking.
Why It Matters
Today, when I hear a child say, “Let me think about how I’m thinking,” I know something deeper is happening. They’re not just learning content; they’re learning about themselves as learners.
And in the end, that’s what I want most for them: not just to be good students, but to be aware, thoughtful humans who understand their own minds, and trust that they can grow.
