Reciprocal Teaching
Strategies for Improving Reading
Comprehension
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/category/atom
s/
Gary Scott
September 29, 2012
Reading and Mathematics
What the Research Says
About Reciprocal Teaching
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Palincsar and Brown 1986 when reciprocal teaching was used for
just 15 days students reading increases from 30- 80%.
According to a study by Palinscar and Klenk 1991, students not only
improved their comprehension skills immediately, but they also
maintained improved comprehension skills when tested a year later.
Lubliner 2001 points out that reciprocal teaching is an effective
teaching technique that can improve on the kind of reading
comprehension that is necessary not only for improved test scores
but also for an information age.
What is Reciprocal Teaching?
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RT is a framework for teaching the skills necessary for good
comprehension.
It is dialogue based.
Initially, the teacher acts as the facilitator - modeling the use of 5 key
strategies to the pupils.
Gradually, with teacher support, pupils confidence and competency will
increase and adult input will decrease.
The eventual aim is that the pupils will be able to work independently.
Reciprocal Teaching is powerful researched based
technique. It is NOT a stand alone method
for teaching comprehension.
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Previewing
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Self Questioning
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Knowing How
Words Work
Monitoring
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Making Connections
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Summarizing
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Modeling-VisualizingIllustrating
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Evaluating
The Five Reciprocal Teaching
Strategies
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Predicting
Questioning
Clarifying
Modeling-VisualizingIllustrating
Summarizing
But don’t I use these five
strategies already?
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Most likely, you already teach your students to
predict, question, clarify, summarize and visualize.
The difference with reciprocal teaching is that the
strategies are delivered as a multiple-strategy
package used in concert with one another rather than
as separate strategies.
The aim of reciprocal teaching is for good readers to
cycle through five strategies, not necessarily in order,
to make sense of the text.
Are there any common problems that students
experience with teaching reciprocal teaching?
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Predicting: Students may not make logical predictions
based on clues from the text or their experiences.
Questioning: Students may only generate literal
questions and may need modeling toward asking
inferential or main idea questions.
Clarifying: Students may initially clarify only difficult,
new, or confusing words because students rarely
recognize they are having trouble with an idea in the text.
Modeling/visualizing: Students may focus on realworld objects, phenomena, or actions and struggle with
representing them in some limited ways (e.g., through
highlighting, simplifying, showing specific aspects, adding
clarifying symbols, or creating multiple representations).
The main focus is still on the model and the reality
modeled, not the ideas portrayed per se. Further, tests of
the model are not thought of as tests of underlying ideas
but of the workability of the model itself.
Summarizing: Students may miss points or supply a
summary that is too long, too short or a word by word
rendition.
Reciprocal Teaching: Instructional
Strategies
Before Reading
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Determine stopping points in the text for applying comprehension
strategies and discussing the text.
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Activate students’ background knowledge about topic or theme.
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Preview the texts title, illustrations, headings, tables, etc.
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Teacher models predicting and invites students to predict. Record
predictions on the reciprocal teaching graphic organizer.
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Remind students to think about questions to ask and to look for words
and passages to clarify. You may provide sticky notes for this.
Reciprocal Teaching: Instructional
Strategies
During Reading
Read the text together: teacher read-aloud, choral
reading, whisper reading in small groups, or silent
reading.
Students develop questions and identify words and
passages for clarifying.
Reciprocal Teaching: Instructional
Strategies
After Reading
Return to predictions. Teacher models how to check predictions.
Teacher and students check the other predictions.
Teacher models clarifying and invites students to share words
and passages that need clarifying.
Teacher models question asking and invites students to ask and
discuss their questions.
Teacher models the modeling process and asks students to create
and modify models that explain the phenomena or concept.
Teacher models summarizing or guides the students in creating a
summary.
What is your best piece of advice for
using reciprocal teaching?
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Model the strategies
Be consistent
Use the strategies
several times a
week
Remembering?
Predicting
The predictor helps the group to identify the organizational
structure of the text and to connect sections of the text to
one another and to the overall text structure. The predictor
could use the following prompts to help the group.
Which type(s) of text structure did this most closely match?
 What evidence lead you to identify that text structure?
 Based on the type(s) identified, what did you predict that you
would read about next?
 What do you think we will read about next?
Text types can usually be classified in the following ways:
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Descriptive
Chronological
Cause and effect
Analytical
Persuasive
Compare and contrast
Clarifying
The clarifier assists in identifying words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and
sections of the text that may be unclear and asks members for ways in
clearing up these problems. In the initial stages of implementation the
clarifier may use the following prompts to help the group clear up
difficulties.
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What is still not clear to you?
Lets reread what is still unclear and try rereading the section right before
what was unclear.
Lets chunk the text into smaller segments. For example, break complex
sentences into component clauses or phrases.
Lets visualize what is described in the text. If there are diagrams or pictures
depicting the difficult material look at them carefully and read the captions
that accompany the graphics. Also try mental visualizing using these
phrases as aids, I picture …, I can see …
Lets connect what we have read to things we already know from other
science experiences. For instance, this is like …, this reminds me of …
Lets get outside help. For instance, if it’s a word we don’t understand lets
try the glossary in the text, a dictionary, or an encyclopedia.
Modeling (illustrating - visualizing)
The modeler helps group members to make meaning from the graphs,
illustrations, charts by clarifying the relationship between the text and the
illustration. The modeler also helps to make sense of text by making a sketch
or drawing depicting understanding and focusing on explaining the
phenomena or concept.
As the modeler you might ask the group:
 Why is the illustration in the text?
 How does it relate to the text?
 How did your drawing illustrate the ideas and concepts in the
text.
 How does your drawing compare with others in your group?
What is alike? What is different?
 How did your illustration help you make meaning of the context
of the text?
 What will you add to your drawing to clarify your thinking and
explain the phenomena or concept?
Questioning
The questioner helps group members ask and answer
all types of questions about the text.
As the questioner, you might ask the group:
 What questions did you have as you read?
 Can anyone else help answer that question?
 What kind of question was that?
 What did we do to find answers?
 Are there any other questions you wonder about?
Summarizing
The summarizer helps group members restate the main ideas
in the reading. Reminder - Summaries are formed by the
reader and are not found in the text. They do not include the
details. Summarizing helps us understand and remember what
we have read.
As the summarizer you might ask the group:
 What are the main ideas in this chunk of text?
 Can you use your own words to state the main idea
in one sentence?
 Which parts could you leave out and still get the point
across?
 How can we combine our ideas into one summary?