RECIPROCAL TEACHING IN PRACTICE

The following are general examples of how teachers have provided instruction, guided practice, and independent practice.

Instruction

Define reciprocal teaching for your students.

Example: “What do good readers do that makes them good readers? [Give time for students to respond.] They predict—make a good guess of what is going to happen next — and clarify—stop when they don’t understand and try to figure out what the word or words mean. Good readers also ask questions about what they read. They want to make sure they know what they are reading, when a story took place, who the reading is about, and why and how things happened. They also summarize what they read. That is, they can explain what the reading is about in a few words or sentences because they pick out what is important and what is not.”

Explain or illustrate why these four strategies are important for your students.

Example: “These four tools help you understand what you read better, use the information you read better, and remember what you read better.”

Introduce the four strategies of reciprocal teaching and provide examples.

Before you introduce the four strategies, tell students to think about why they are reading a text and what they are trying to find out. As you introduce the strategies, model and encourage think-alouds, i.e., talk aloud while using the strategy. Not only will verbalizing thoughts help students see their steps in understanding, others can hear the reading processes being used.

Develop an activity or materials that get your students thinking about reciprocal teaching and its four strategies.

Examples:

Predict. Stroll Line. Assign participants to preview a selected text and to write three or four predictions with supporting clues from the text. Divide the class into two lines. Each line participant faces a partner and shares their predictions and clues with that partner. Signal participants to stroll to the next partner to do the same. Repeat prediction sharing a couple more times. Discuss predictions.

Clarify. Read-Cover-Remember-Retell. Assign partners a reading that may have some confusing text. Tell students to read only as much as their hand can cover, and then cover up the text they just read. Next, have them retell what they read to a partner.

Question. I Wonder. Have students skim through a literature or informational text. Assign them to write an “I wonder” question for each page of a picture book or section of a textbook or article. After writing questions, students read the text to find answers.

Summarize. Telegram. Assign a reading and tell students they have to write a message about the reading but each word costs 10 cents in the message. They only have $2 to spend, so they have to summarize reading content in 20 words or less.


Guided Practice

Provide opportunities for students to practice.

Example: The jigsaw gives students the opportunity to develop expertise by first working in a group focused on the summary strategy, and then with a larger group to share summaries. Start by setting up “home” groups comprised of four students. Then create “expert” groups by numbering off “one, two, three, and four” to form groups. Reorganize students by putting all the ones together, twos together, etc. Assign each expert group an article to read that relates to the other articles. Individually, each student reads and highlights key points. Within their group, students are to discuss important points from their reading and plan ways to share with their home group. Next, regroup back into home groups that each contain a one, two, three, and four reader. Each student then teaches home group students key points from the article read. During this sharing, students analyze how the information pieces fit together. Besides setting up groups and providing readings, the teacher’s role is to manage time and question students in a way that enables them to determine key points and their inter-relation.

Provide feedback and support to students as they practice.

One aspect of reciprocal teaching is listening to what other students are teaching. Remind students to listen to the student who is teaching. If something isn’t clear, the listening students have a responsibility to request their peer teacher for clarification. Also, encourage students to self-monitor with the Reciprocal Teaching Self-Evaluation form.

Guide students through reflection on and application of reciprocal teaching.

During the three implementation phases—strategy introduction, student practice with teacher facilitating, and student group participation with teacher monitoring, the teacher scaffolds students as they become more independent in strategy use.


Independent Practice

Support students as they personalize application of reciprocal teaching.

During practice, teachers can walk around the room and provide assistance, if needed. The Reciprocal Teaching Asset Form can be used to chart student progress.

Reinforce reciprocal teaching.

Provide opportunities for students to apply reciprocal teaching strategies to new reading content.