The aim of the research was to examine gender differences in text comprehension, as well as in (meta)cognitive (vocabulary, metacognitive knowledge and summarizing) and motivational factors of reading (interest, reading involvement, perceived competency, extrinsic motivation). The study was conducted on a sample of eighthgrade students of elementary schools in Croatia (N = 240) and ninth-grade students from Slovenia (N = 265). Comprehension of expository and narrative texts was examined using the text used in the international IEA Study of reading literacy (1991). In addition to the text comprehension task, a Vocabulary test (Hershel, 1963), Metacognitive knowledge questionnaire and summarizing task, as well as The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997) were applied. Compared to boys, girls showed better metacognitive knowledge, higher motivation for reading and better narrative text comprehension. Slovenian students scored higher on measures of (meta)cognitive factors of reading and on intrinsic motivation scales and in expository text comprehension. Croatian students showed higher extrinsic motivation and perceived competency.

gender differences, text comprehension, vocabulary, metacogntiive knowledge, summarizing, reading motivation