Reading

Among the many goals of the reading strand beginning on page 10 in Ontario's language curriculum are to help students learn to read with understanding and to read critically.  Reciprocal teaching is an effective way to achieve these goals


What is Reciprocal Teaching?

Reciprocal teaching is a student-centered comprehension strategy that allows students to teach and learn from each other in small groups. The goal is for students to deepen their understanding of a particular text using four strategies:  questioning, clarifying, predicting and summarizing.  In addition to increasing comprehension, this strategy facilitates strong levels of student participation, communication and critical thinking.


 The Strategies

Summarizing:  Highlights key ideas in the section of the text being focused on.  If students were to read chapter one in a particular week, a summary of this chapter will highlight its key ideas or events. Students can enhance their ability to summarize by taking notes of the main events in the chapter as they read.

Questioning:  Asks questions about parts of the chapter that are unclear, confusing or can be connected to other areas of the novel or concepts previously learned.

Clarifying:  Attempts to answer questions asked in order to reduce confusion, clarify events and ideas in the text, and make connections between different areas of the text or concepts previously learned.

Predicting:  Make predictions about future events or information revealed in the text.


The Process


One way that reciprocal teaching can be implemented is by assigning roles to each student in the group.  One week a particular student will be the 'summarizer', another will take on the role of 'clarifier', another the 'questioner' and another the 'predictor'.  The student assigned to a respective role will be responsible for making those contributions. Students do not have to be limited to these roles, however.  Iif a student is a designated as clarifier for a particular week, he/she can still contribute predictions, ask questions or add key events to the summary. Each week or each time the group meets, students will rotate to a different role so that each student has the opportunity to experience and contribute from the perspective of a summarizer, questioner, clarifier and predictor.

Another way to implement the strategy of reciprocal teaching is to have one student be the 'teacher' in their group and assume all four roles as the summarizer, clarifier, questioner and predictor for that particular week.  The 'teacher' will first present their perspective on all four roles and then lead/facilitate discussion by soliciting contributions from the other students in the group.

In a slight variation on the second method, each student in the group can act as the 'teacher' every week and the group discussion can proceed by going around the circle with each student contributing their perspective on all four roles. As each 'teacher' presents, the other students may have their questions clarified, have ideas for new questions pop into their heads, enhance their understanding of the main events in the chapter and consider predictions that they had not previously thought about.  Once everyone has presented, discussion can proceed about ideas or information that still need to be clarified, new questions and predictions to be made.  In this method students will go into the group with their own ideas, develop new ideas while in the group and come out of it with new perspectives.


The Curriculum Connection

The curriculum states "reading is a complex process that involves the application of many strategies before,during, and after reading".  Reciprocal teaching is one strategy that encompasses each of these three stages.  Before reading, the reader makes predictions about the text by activating their background knowledge.  During reading, the reader keeps track of key events and develops questions about the text based on the content.  After reading, readers get together and discuss the text, which will serve to clarify  confusing aspects of it.

Reciprocal teaching is a way touch on a number of comprehension strategies such as predicting, questioning, drawing inferences, identifying main ideas and summarizing.  These strategies, in turn, facilitate the development of skills in order to analyze, synthesize, making connections and evaluate that are critical to becoming a strong reader.

Resources

http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/reciprocal_teaching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oXskcnb4RA

http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19765/

http://www.interventioncentral.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pdfs_interventions/recip_teaching_1.pdf