Metacognition and reading comprehension skills are believed to influence students' academic success. However, many studies report that students' understanding of texts is still low even though they have been able to read fluently. This study aims to investigate and describe students' metacognitive awareness in reading comprehension learning activities and the effect of metacognition on reading comprehension skills. The research method used is a mixed-method by utilizing the descriptive and quantitative correlational analysis results. The research subjects involved were 280 students and eight Indonesian language teachers from eight senior high schools. The research data was obtained from the observations of reading learning activities, interviews, distributing questionnaires, and reading skills tests. The results showed that most students did not know the right reading strategy for themselves. Overall, students have not been able to conclude the goals and benefits of learning to read comprehension for their lives, behave passively in learning, and have not been able to identify solutions to face reading comprehension difficulties according to their characteristics. Based on the results of correlational calculations, metacognition was positively correlated with students' reading comprehension skills. This study recommends that teachers and curriculum designers emphasize the components of metacognitive awareness activity for improving students' reading comprehension skills.