Abstract
<p>AbstractBackground. Critical thinking is increasingly mandated as a curricular aim in primary reading, yet the evidence on how teachers foster it in upper-primary classrooms has not been systematically mapped.Methods. A systematic review following PRISMA was conducted across six databases (2012–2022), yielding twelve studies. Quality was appraised using the Gorard et al. structured sieve. A narrative synthesis grouped studies by instructional approach.Results. Seven approaches were identified: explicit metacognitive-strategy instruction, Quality Talk, Socratic reflective prompting, think-aloud, teacher scaffolding, concept mapping, and general reading-strategy techniques. Explicit metacognitive instruction and Quality Talk showed the most consistent positive effects. The evidence base is small and methodologically immature; no study combined both approaches.Conclusions. From the pattern of findings, the Dual-Process Knowledge Model is proposed, in which critical thinking in reading emerges from the interaction of an individual metacognitive process and a social dialogic process acting on a reader's knowledge. The review identifies explicit metacognitive instruction and Quality Talk as priority candidates for English Key Stage 2 intervention research, and argues that current curriculum reform rests on an evidence base that remains insufficient to support it.</p>