The present study explores the impact of an experimental reading intervention focusing on explicit reading strategy instruction and cross-age peer tutoring on third and sixth graders' reading strategy awareness, cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. In total, 39 teachers and 762 elementary school students participated in the study. The experimental intervention was implemented during an entire school year. Standardized tests were used to measure pupils' reading comprehension (Staphorsius & Krom, 1996). Further, students completed 2 questionnaires: the index of reading awareness (Jacobs & Paris, 1987) and the reading strategy use scale (Pereira-Laird & Deane, 1997). Significant intervention effects were found for third graders' overall awareness of reading strategies, their awareness of the importance of regulating the reading process, and sixth graders' awareness of the added value of evaluation of tasks, goals, and personal skills. Further, significant intervention effects were found for both third and sixth graders' overall reading strategy use. For sixth graders a significant impact on metacognitive reading strategy use was found as well. (Contains 7 tables.)