The study includes two experiments to analyse the effects of automatic formative feedback designed to promote the transfer of self‐regulation of strategic decisions in task‐oriented reading (e.g. answering questions from an available text). Secondary‐school students read and answered multiple‐choice comprehension questions from two texts having them available while receiving consistent feedback about their performance and strategic decisions. Then, they read a different text and answered questions also with the text available, but receiving no feedback. In Experiment 1, we tested two feedback procedures that differed in task conditions and the feedback information associated to these conditions. The most effective was a procedure that forced students to select relevant text information to answer each question and provided accurate feedback based on that selection. Experiment 2 was designed to disentangle the role played by the selection task from that played by the feedback provided. We found that the two components contribute to transfer the self‐regulation strategies, although each one has a specific role for different strategies. Theoretical and practical implications of the studies are discussed.