Reciprocal TeachingReciprocal teaching is the best way to increase students' comprehension. Here is the best way to use strategies for teaching reciprocal reading.
Most teachers use the reciprocal teaching strategy for reading comprehension, but it is a very effective strategy in any subject area (for the purpose of this page, I will focus on language arts/reading). It also is an essential part of reading interventions for students who are behind. Students who are at-risk lack the strategies effective readers use to comprehend a text, and this will give them the tools they need for success. One other note: you must teach each of these strategies on their own first before pulling them all together. Or at least, focus the students' attention on one thing while you weave in some questioning or clarifying throughout. Tell the students that they are working on the skill of predicting today - they need to know what you are doing and why. Give it some value to them (it shouldn't be a mystery!). The order you teach them in really doesn't matter, but I do like to use the order I outlined below. I spend a month or two focusing my reading comprehension lessons on reciprocal teaching, then we pull them all together for the remainder of the year. What Is Reciprocal Teaching?It is a compilation of four separate, yet intertwined, comprehension strategies: The purpose of reciprocal teaching is to structure the dialogue amongst teacher and students in a meaningful way that contributes to literacy development. (Plus it is simply a lot of fun to be talking with the students and letting them discuss the story with you and each other!). Predicting Predictions happen when the students hypothesize about the story. This can occur many times during the story, not just at the beginning. By making predictions about the text before and during reading, you are helping them provide a purpose for reading. As well, they now have the opportunity to scaffold any previous knowledge they might have to the text to help it make sense to them. I always do a picture walk before reading a story, as well as looking through the book at the chapters, reading the "hook" on the back, and my class predicts what will happen in the text based on those activities. This is so valuable as the children are now interested to see if their predictions are correct! I also stop during the story to ask what will happen next, and I bring in the higher-order thinking skills by asking what they base their predictions on (they must give support for their predictions). This is the key to good hypothesizing and predicting: always use clues from the text and/or illustrations for support. Clarifying Questioning Summarizing For older students, here are some student role cards that would be a good tool to use. Using the Reciprocal Teaching ModelWhen I first heard the term "reciprocal teaching," I thought I was supposed to have the students teach each other - how silly! Or was it? As I began to use this more in my classroom, I noticed the children naturally began to assist and teach each other using the 4 strategies I taught them. How did this happen?I suspect it had something to do with the fact that my students now felt empowered in their reading, it was all becoming more interesting because they were understanding it, they were used to using the strategies for reciprocal reading whole class and at the teacher table, and it was fun. One challenge for me was to be able to mark their growth as readers and turn that into a grade for parents and report cards. A checklist that I could keep in each student's file turned out to be what I needed. It is still a bit subjective, but now I have something tangible to use when evaluating my students. Click on the link below to view and download the checklist I use. Reciprocal Teaching Observation Checklist One thing I love to do with my primary students is use puppets. Primary Concepts has the original Fabulous Four puppets that I use for reciprocal teaching. Older students might not find them so fun (in fact, I would never have used them with my fifth graders), but the younger crowd loves them. The book Reciprocal Teaching at Work is also well worth your money, particularly for older students. This will give you ideas to use whole class, guided reading and literature circles, as well as a rubric to aid your assessment of students. Return to Top: Reciprocal Teaching
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