3. By the end of this session Trs. will be able
to
Identify the RT features.
Identify the 4 RT techniques.
The importance and the characteristic of
the 4 techniques.
Asses students who use the RT.
Start and continue Reciprocal Teaching by
themselves.
Recognize who will benefit from the RT.
Identify how much time you need to
monitor Ss. using RT.
4. What is Reciprocal Teaching?
Reciprocal Teaching is a technique used to develop
comprehension of expository text in which
teacher and students take turns leading a
dialogue concerning sections of a text. Four
activities are incorporated into the technique:
prediction, questioning, summarizing and
clarifying misleading or complex sections of the
text.
5. Why is it important for
students to design their own
questions?
Students involved in the Reciprocal Teaching process
are checking their own understanding of the material
they have encountered. They do this by generating
questions and summarizing. Expert scaffolding is
essential for cognitive development as students move
from spectator to performer after repeated
modelling by adults.
6. How will Reciprocal Teaching
benefit students?
The purpose of Reciprocal Teaching is to help students,
with or without a teacher present, actively bring meaning
to the written word. The strategies chosen not only
promote reading comprehension but also provide
opportunities for students to learn to monitor their own
learning and thinking. The structure of the dialogue and
interactions of the group members require that all
students participate and foster new relationships
between students of different ability levels.
7. Which students will benefit the most
from the Reciprocal Teaching strategy?
Reciprocal Teaching has proved to be useful with a widely diverse
population of students. The RT procedure was designed to improve
the reading comprehension ability of students who were adequate
decoders but had poor comprehension. However, modifications of
this procedure have been used to teach students who were poor
decoders, second language learners or non-readers. Poor
decoders used the procedure as a read-along activity, second
language learners used it to practice developing skills while non-
readers learned it as a listening comprehension activity. Teachers
have observed that even normally achieving or above average
students profit from strategy instruction because it allows them
to read and understand more challenging texts. Also, students
with more experience and confidence help other students in their
group to decode and understand what is being read; students with
more experience in questioning (i.e. weaker students) stimulate
deeper thinking and understanding in their more academically
8. How do I assess students using the
Reciprocal Teaching strategy in their
reading?
Listening to students during the
dialogue is the most valuable means
for determining whether or not
students are learning the strategies
and whether or not the strategies are
helping them. In whole group
settings, students may be asked to
write out questions and summaries to
be checked by the teacher or other
9. How long should teachers continue to
monitor students using the Reciprocal
Teaching strategy?
Continuous monitoring and evaluation of
performance should take place to determine
the kind of support or scaffolding the students
need to successfully execute the strategies.
Monitoring, however, may become more
infrequent when students become more adept
at monitoring their own performance.
10. What support do teachers
need to start and continue
Reciprocal Teaching?
Teachers wishing to adopt the Reciprocal Teaching technique into
their curriculum should have the digest provided complete with
graphic organizers of the questioning, summarizing, clarifying and
predicting strategies. Some thought must be made about the text to
provide for instructive purposes during the learning phase. The
ability level of the students should be taken into account before
choosing a challenging text. A daily journal would be helpful to
refer to as students are scaffolding at different rates. Also, at
least one other teacher to collaborate with and debrief
29. Sources:
Carroll, Ann-Martin. (1988) Reciprocal Teaching. Presentation given at the
California Reading Association, San Diego, CA.
Palincsar, A. S. & Brown, A. (1984). Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-
Fostering and Comprehension Monitoring Activities. Cognition and
Instruction, 1(2), 117-175.
Walker, B. (1988). Diagnostic Teaching of Reading. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill
Publishing Co.
