A study examined the impact of instruction on the metacognitive strategies of five fifth-grade students whose vocabulary knowledge test scores were two or more stanines higher than their comprehension test scores. The students were administered "The Informal Reading Inventory" to determine their appropriate functional levels and the general nature of their cognitive processing. During the test, the students periodically heard and reacted to tapes of their reading, and their responses were recorded. The students then participated in 13 one-hour conferences over a four-week period. Eight of the conferences involved all of the students and two or three adults, the rest involved two or three students and one adult. The conferences focused on the strategic use of language information rather than on direct teaching of comprehension/word recognition skills. Reciprocal teaching strategies such as summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting were used, along with strategies to help the students discover the logical structure of the text. Posttest results revealed evidence of less preoccupation with word accuracy in postsession readings and considerable evidence of self-monitoring and self-questioning in the postsession readings, as well as in student reactions to tapes of their reading. There was also evidence of a marked change in students' responses to inference questions, indicating that they could draw on prior knowledge and implicit text information to arrive at responses. (FL)