The cognitive processes of reading comprehension roughly fall into two categories:

(1) lower level processes that involve translating the written code into meaningful language
units and,
(2) higher level processes that involve combining these units into a meaningful and coherent
mental representation.

With respect to lower level processes, there is general consensus that comprehension of text
depends heavily on decoding (Perfetti, 1985), reading fluency (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins,
2001), and vocabulary knowledge (Nagy, Herman, & Anderson, 1985).

Lower level processes initiate to develop in somebody`s mental development since early
childhood, even before children begin to read actively. Even inference, which is considered to be
part of higher level comprehending processes, which is not only innate as the fist one mostly is,
but it can also be learned and acquired during the years. One source of reading comprehension
problems concerns the ability to generate inferences. Inferences allow the reader to construct
meaningful connections between text elements and relevant background knowledge and
therefore are crucial to comprehension (Oakhill, Cain, & Bryant, 2003; van den Broek, 1990).
The development of inference making skills begins at a young age, well before formal reading

How do we understand what we read?

Reading comprehension depends on the execution and integration of many cognitive processes
(Kendeou & Trevors, 2012; van den Broek & Espin, 2012; van den Broek, Rapp, & Kendeou,
2005). To understand a sentence, one must visually process the individual words, identify and
access their phonological, orthographic, which are embodied into the lower level processes and
further developed into the higher level ones which mostly encompass the semantic
representations, and later connect these representations to form an understanding of the
underlying meaning of the sentence. Similarly, to comprehend a text as a whole, the reader needs
to process and connect individual idea units, resulting (if all goes well) in the construction of a
coherent mental representation of the text. For these processes to be successful, many factors
play a role, including reader characteristics, text properties, and the demands of the reading task
(Lorch & van den Broek, 1997; van den Broek & Kremer, 1999).

Williams and Burden state that cognitive strategies are seen as mental processes directly
concerned with the processing of information in order to learn, that is for obtaining, storage,
retrieval or use of information (1997, p.148). They are more limited to specific learning tasks and
involve more direct manipulation of the learning material itself (Brown, 1994, p.115). In general,
studies in both L1 and L2 reading research provide a binary division of cognitive strategies as
bottom-up and top-down. Goodman refers to the bottom up model as the “common sense notion”
(1986, p.11). In this approach, reading is meant to be a process of decoding; identifying letter,
words, phrases, and then sentences in order to get the meaning. On the other hand, top-down
model advocates “the selection of the fewest and most productive elements from a text so as to
make sense of it” (Lynch & Hudson, 1991, p. 218) and views the reading process as an active
“psychological guessing game” (Carrell, 1998, p.2).

Williams, Mercer & Ryan (2015) clarify language learning strategies in five groups as “cognitive
strategies, which are mental processes learners use”, socials strategies, that is used to interact
with others, compensation strategies “as they compensate for a lack of knowledge of the
language”, affective strategies which are used “to regulate their emotions”, and metacognitive
strategies “used to regulate and control the learning process” (p. 124). Cognitive strategies and
metacognitive strategies are the vital points of the present study.

According to Weinstein and Meyer (1986), cognitive strategies seek to manipulate the incoming
information in a way that would optimize learning through rehearsal, organization; and
elaboration processes. Such processes may in themselves be combined with other processes
which may rely, in varying degrees, on prior knowledge stored in the learners’ long-term
memory, for example, when summarizing, deducing, inferencing and transferring (cited in
O’Malley &Chamot, 1990). Likewise, Ritter et al. (2007) claim that cognitive learning is to put
the newly information upon the present one in long-term memory. Lewis & Hurd also (2008)
state “Cognitive strategies are direct strategies used to orchestrate the mental processing of a
target language” (p.72). Brown and Palincsar (1982) point out that cognitive strategies are more
involved with individual tasks which require more manipulation of materials to reach a sounder
understanding of the content ( cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1990).

Robinson (1980, p. 205) describe reading as a process of interaction, involving a reader engaging
with the information submitted by the author through the text. Through this process, the reader
seeks to understand, evaluate, and utilize the information and ideas being presented. In reading
comprehension, to understand the text, the reader needs to apply a comprehension strategy
appropriate to the text they read (Smith and Robinson, 1980, p. 205). These strategies include
selecting, predicting, confirming, and validating the results of the understanding. The use of
these strategies has an effect on the reader’s success in comprehending the content of the text
(Cohen, 1986, p. 133). This means that the use of the right strategy can optimize the results of
comprehension while the use of inappropriate strategies can be a barrier to the success of
comprehension.

Brown (2007) explains that learning strategies have a close relationship with learning styles and
self-factors or personalities of those learning. Therefore, Hazzard (2016) explains that if the
learning strategy is not in accordance with the learning style, students cannot learn the language
well. According to Brown (2007), language learning strategies can be grouped into three kinds:
cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and socio-affective strategies. The three kinds of
strategies have variants in their use in language learning. This depends on the cognitive style and
the learner's understanding of the strategy he or she occupies. In line with the diversity of these
strategies, this article focuses its discussion on cognitive strategies in reading comprehension.