Reciprocal Teaching Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension

Goals of Reciprocal Teaching To improve students’ reading comprehension using four strategies: Predicting Questioning Clarifying Summarizing

Goals of Reciprocal Teaching (continued) To scaffold the four strategies by modeling, guiding and applying strategies while reading To guide students to become reflective in their thinking To help students monitor their reading comprehension using these four strategies To strengthen instruction in a variety of settings: whole-class and guided reading To be part of a broader framework of comprehension strategies

Reciprocal Teaching (continued) Previewing Self-questioning Making connections Visualizing Monitoring Evaluating Knowing how words work To be part of a broader framework of comprehension strategies that include:

What Reciprocal Teaching Is.. “Reciprocal teaching is a powerful research-based teaching technique.” “Reciprocal teaching was designed to focus on just four important strategies that good readers use to comprehend text.” Oczkus, Lori D. (2003). Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension. Delaware: International Reading Associations

What Reciprocal Teaching is not …. “Reciprocal Teaching is not a pencil-and- paper activity. It was designed as a discussion technique in which think-alouds play an integral part.” Reciprocal teaching is “not comprehensive enough to stand alone as a method for teaching reading comprehension.”

Ways to Use Reciprocal Teaching Teach the reciprocal teaching strategies to whole groups using Big Books, short newspaper and magazine articles. Give struggling readers an extra dose of reading comprehension instruction using reciprocal teaching in small intervention groups. Have students take on the roles of predictor, questioner, clarifier and summarizer in literature circles.

Ways to Use Reciprocal Teaching (continued) Train cross-age buddies in second and fourth grades to focus on reciprocal teaching strategies as they read and discuss picture books.

Reciprocal Teaching Strategies “ The Fabulous Four ”

Madam, the Powerful Predictor Previewing the text to anticipate what might happen next Assists students in setting a purpose for reading and in monitoring their comprehension

Predicting I think….. I’ll bet…. I wonder if…. I imagine…. I suppose…. I predict….

Quincy, the Quizzical Questioner Good readers ask questions throughout the reading process Students learn to generate questions about a text’s main idea, important details and textual inferences

Questioning Who? What? Where? When ? Why? How? What if? Language of questioning:

Clara, the Careful Clarifier Clarifying helps students monitor their own comprehension as they identify problems that they are having comprehending parts of the text. Teacher and the student share “fix-up” strategies to construct meaning.

Clarifying Language of clarifying: I didn’t understand the part where… This {sentence, paragraph, page, chapter} is not clear. I can’t figure out… This is a tricky word because…

Clarifying Strategies I reread the parts that I didn’t understand. I read on to look for clues. I think about what I know. I talk to a friend. I reread. I look for word parts I know. I try to blend the sounds together. I think of another word that looks like this word. I read on to find clues. I try another word that makes sense. To clarify an idea: To clarify a word:

Sammy, the Super Summarizer To summarize effectively, students must recall and arrange in order only the important events in the text. Summary organization is based on the type of text: narrative or expository.

Summarizing The most important ideas in this text are… This part was about… The book was about… First… Next… Then… Finally… The story takes place… The main characters are… A problem occurs when… The language of summarizing: