Reciprocal Teaching Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity that takes place in the form of a dialogue between teachers and students regarding segments of text. (Palinscar, 1986)

The dialogue is structured using four strategies: Summarization Question Generation Clarification Prediction Teacher and students take turns assuming the role of teacher in directing this dialogue. (Palinscar, 1986)

A primary purpose of reciprocal teaching is to teach students to actively use these strategies themselves on a regular basis (Graves & Graves, 1994)

Meant to Bring Meaning to Text -Many struggling readers decode slowly and do not read fluently, prohibiting text comprehension -They also have difficulty with the metacognitive strategies of reading, including: Planning Revising Picking Strategies

Each of these steps requires active involvement by the student Initially, the Teacher models the strategies, gradually releasing responsibility: - First goal is for students to be able to do all the roles within a small group - Final goal is for students to use all the strategies while reading independently Each of these steps requires active involvement by the student

-Summarizing -Questioning -Clarifying -Predicting Strategies -Summarizing -Questioning -Clarifying -Predicting

Summarizing -Summarizing occurs after questions are answered and information is clarified -Helps students identify the most important components of the text -Can be used across sentences, paragraphs or the whole passage -Encourages note taking strategies (selective underlining, use of sticky notes, etc.) -The summarizer puts the information in his/her own words

Question Generating -Identify the important concepts that would be worthy of questioning -Information posed in question form and then answered by self and others -Questions can also include : unclear parts, puzzling information or information that connects to things already read

Clarifying -Especially important for students who have comprehension -Identify what the issue in is: new vocabulary, unfamiliar or difficult concepts -Identify a way to make it clear: reread, ask for help - Active engagement is necessary to identify where the problem is

Predicting -using known information a hypothesis is made about what will happen next-has students link known and unknown -Requires clear understanding of the portion of the text read -Provides a purpose for reading- to either support or not support the prediction -Students use to learn text structure like headings and subheadings to help predict

Research Base for Middle and High School -Palincsar and Brown (1985) conducted a series of studies to determine the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching. -Studies were conducted by adult tutors working with middle school students in pairs . -Students were fair decoders but poor comprehenders -Typically performing at least two years below grade level on standardized measures of comprehension. - Instruction took place for 20 consecutive school days.

-It was evaluated by having the students read passages about 450 to 500 words in length and answer 10 comprehension questions from recall. -Performance on assessment passages found that all students but one reached 70 % proficiency. -These results were in contrast to the group of control students, none of whom achieved criterion performance.

-The same instructional procedure was implemented in larger classes - 71 % of the students using RR achieved criterion performance -19 %of the control students who were involved in individualized skill instruction -”Teachers observed fewer behavior problems in their reciprocal teaching groups than in their control groups." (pp. 19-20)

Numerous evaluation studies have shown that reciprocal teaching is effective in improving reading comprehension. (Lysynchuk, Pressley, & Vye, 1990; Taylor & Frye, 1992).

“Reciprocal teaching is most compatible with classrooms that are "social, interactive, and wholistic [sic] in nature“. Palincsar and Klenk (1992),p. 213