What is 'Reciprocal Teaching'?
Reciprocal teaching is a way of using four different strategies (predicting, clarifying, questioning and predicting) to make meaning of a text in a guided reading setting. Students lead the session and go around the circle where each student will use common language such as 'I predict..' where they must give evidence from the text. It is a very effective way for students to become engaged with a text by showing their comprehension skills through a small group setting and even has results in the improvement of students reading and comprehension skills who are at various reading levels (Conderman, Bresnahan, & Hedin, 2011).
Hint: We suggest to select texts that students are learning about in other curriculum areas, so that they have a familiarity with the topic and language used (State of Victoria (DEECD), 2008) .
Below is an example of how reciprocal teaching is used within a classroom setting:
Hint: We suggest to select texts that students are learning about in other curriculum areas, so that they have a familiarity with the topic and language used (State of Victoria (DEECD), 2008) .
Below is an example of how reciprocal teaching is used within a classroom setting:
Roles of Reciprocal Teaching:
* These roles must be modelled first before each student can adopt a role.
Summariser:
Questioner:
Clarifier:
(State of Victoria (DEECD), 2008)
Summariser:
- The Summariser will discuss the important ideas and points that were brought up in the text.
- Example of language used: The key arguments in this text is... The main idea... The most important ideas are..
Questioner:
- The Questioner asks questions about the text to help students understand it better.
- Often uses 'The 5 W's'- Who, where, when, what, why and ....how?
Clarifier:
- The Clarifier will highlight areas of the text that is unclear by asking further questions.
- Example of language used: I'm not sure what... means? Why do you think that this happened? What do you think this word means in this passage?
- The Predicter will predict what may happen in the text by setting a purpose.
- Example of language used: I think ... I predict...I wonder if...What might this section of the text tell us about?
(State of Victoria (DEECD), 2008)