Fantastic Four: Superhero Learning with Reciprocal Teaching

Facilitator(s): Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin) | https://ly.tcea.org/fan4

Scaffolding student cognition during reading can enhance student achievement. Let's explore a Deep Learning, high-effect size instructional strategy as a way to assist students who...

don’t remember what they read,
have little to no engagement with reading material,
read at two or more years below grade level,
struggle with non-fiction text, and
can't differentiate between main idea and supporting details.

Let's explore!

What Is It?

Reciprocal Teaching is a deep learning, instructional strategy which aims to foster better reading comprehension and to monitor students who struggle with comprehension.

SOLO Taxonomy - Relational Level
- Student can link ideas together to see the big picture
Student seeks meaning, relates and extend ideas
Looks for patterns and underlying principles,
Checks evidence and relates it to conclusions,
Examines arguments cautiously and critically, and
Becomes actively interested in course content.

Deep Learning strategies facilitate students establishing relationships in and among content. Students work to consolidate their understanding, applying and extending surface learning after building requisite knowledge.

It involves deep processing, or "the ability to understand a new concept in terms of already familiar concepts and already familiar connections between them"

(Source: Efrat Furst, Learning in the Brain)

The Four Strategies

The Reciprocal Teaching strategy contains four steps:

Summarizing (d=0.74)
Questioning (d=0.49)
Clarifying, and
Predicting

It is “reciprocal” in that students and the teacher take turns leading a dialogue about the text in question, asking questions following each of the four steps.

The teacher can model the four steps, then reduce her or his involvement so that students take the lead and are invited to go through the four steps after they read a segment of text.

(Source: Visible Learning MetaX)

Read a summary of the research

Reciprocal Teaching is a structured reading routine where each participant has a specific role.

The use of the strategies improves students' text comprehension skills through scaffolded instruction of four comprehension fostering and monitoring strategies, including:

Generating one's own questions
Summarizing parts of the text
Clarifying word meaning and confusing text passages
Predicting what may come next in text

Why do we need it?

Students should be exposed to broad, wide reading of both fiction and nonfiction:

“We learn to read well by reading a lot for meaning:
1. to analyze or support arguments, to arrive at our own opinions as we
2. make inferences or attempt to solve problems.”
Students should be involved in discussions at least three times per week, with established criteria to guide them

Research Summary

If your students face any or all of the following obstacles (adapted from ASCD Publication: Lori D. Oczkus’ Reciprocal Teaching At Work), reciprocal teaching may be what’s needed.

Students don’t remember what they read, even when they can decode text
Little to no engagement with reading material
Students read at two or more years below grade level
Informational text (non-fiction) is difficult to understand
Challenging words are difficult to decipher
Students may be unable to describe the difference between main idea and supporting details

As a result of reciprocal teaching technique’s effectiveness for over thirty years, it is worth adopting

Does It Work?

Looking for a comprehension technique that works across all content areas, media such as news, books, web, and video?

Reciprocal teaching, a research-based collection of strategies, has enjoyed long success (approx 36 years since a study* in 1984).

It consistently produces results of .74 growth per year. This effect size, measured by John Hattie’s meta-analyses in Visible Learning, accounts for almost two years growth in one year.

Across type of test (standardized, etc.), regardless of teacher, grade level, Reciprocal Teaching proved effective for all ages and situations.

*Note: COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 1984, I (2) 117-175 Copyright o 1984, LawrenceErlbaum Associates, Inc.

How Does It Work?

The Reciprocal Teaching Treatment

Use reciprocal teaching at least three times per week for three months. All four strategies need to be used in each 15 to 30 minute session to obtain best results.

The creators of the Reciprocal Teaching strategy, Ann Palincsar and Ann Brown (1984, 1986), report that after using RT for just 15-20 days, assessment of students’ reading comprehension increased from thirty percent to seventy to eighty percent.

Sentence Stems

Here are some sample sentence stems. There are many examples on the web.

Summarizing

This was about...
I learned...
The most important person/place/thing is....
The most important idea about the the person/place/thing is....
The author wants to highlight....
Does anyone want to add to my summary...?

Predicting

I think ___ will happen next because _____.
I predict the author will tell us _____
I predict the next part will be about _____
What do you predict?
I think...I bet....I think i will learn....

Questioning

In the Text (Author and You)
- What is the problem with....
- What would happen if....
- Who did____
- Where____
In My Head
- Why did that happen?
- How did that happen
- Explain ____

Clarifying

Reread sentence for key ideas, prefixes, suffixes, roots
Here is an idea I would like to clarify....
____ means _____
Is there anything else to clarify?
What are difficult words or ideas?

More Sentence Stems for reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal Teaching Resource Guide

Content To Practice Reciprocal Teaching On

Practice #1 - Text: Why Does Every American Graduation Play “Pomp and Circumstance?” news article
Practice #2 - Video: The Wonky Donkey
Practice #3 - Non-fiction: TweenTribune

Give It A Go: Trying Out the Four Strategies

Get a copy of this Reciprocal Teaching Response Sheet or View Jamboard

Response Sheet: Reciprocal Teaching

Here's a quick activity to try things out:

1 - Select a Text from list below:

Poetry: Plums in the Icebox by William Carlos Williams
NonFiction: Why Do We Sneeze?
Flash Fiction: Cohen's Einstein

2 - Find the Jamboard page for each text

3 - Record Your Thinking

4 - Reflect: How do you feel you did? Why?

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

You asked us, why do we sneeze?

Well, when something irritates our nose, a split-second autopilot reflex kicks in causing us to...achoo!

Anyways, it's basically our bodies' way of getting rid of schnoz invaders. The result is that air along with droplets of water and mucus get forcefully puffed out of our mouth and nose.

I'm talking up to 100 mile an hour kind of speed here.

That's quicker than most professional pitcher's fastball. And, hundreds of thousands of microbes might be hitching a ride on that snot train.

So sneezing, is basically is a great way to spread germs. For some people, wires in their brain get crossed, and they end up sneezing at weird moments, like when they pluck their eyebrows or walk into the sun. But, no matter how bad the timing, if you start to sneeze, let her rip because holding on to one has the potential to do some damage including rupturing your eardrums. And yes, it's possible to sneeze with your eyes open, but no, your eyeballs are not going to pop out.

It's a no too that the myth of sneezing stops your heart. Speaking of something not stopping, in 978 days Donna Griffiths holds the record for the longest run of continuous sneezing. You can only hope she bought stock in tissues.

"So, today's your birthday?"
"Yes,. March 14th, a day that will live 'in family.'" [He laughs.] "That's cute. Did you make that up?"

"Heavens, no! My grandfather kicked the slats out of his cradle the first time he heard it."
"But you did say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right?"

"Oh my... never said that either. I think Rita Mae Brown might claim credit for that, but in any event, that's not the definition of insanity. What you're dealing with there is a psychosis so debilitating that a person can't distinguish fantasy from reality."

"Well, what about this quote: 'Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.'? That sounds like something you might have said."

"Nope, wasn't me," he said, picking up his violin and tuning the instrument.

"Well then, are you familiar with this one: 'I refuse to believe that God plays dice with the universe.'?"

"Close, but no cigar. What I actually wrote my friend Cornelius Lanczos at Princeton in 1942 was: 'It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice... is something I cannot believe for a single moment.'"

"So, what can we believe you said?"
"Just this: 'Don't believe every quote you read on the Internet, because I totally didn't say that.'"

Best Practices

How to Model Reciprocal Teaching to Students

Scaffold student learning. Do this by modeling, guiding, and applying the strategies while reading text aloud.
In groups of four, assign a role to each student.
have students read a few paragraphs of text selection. Suggest to students to use note-taking strategies (e.g. underlining, circling, highlighting).

View video (6:18 min:secs) via Studies Weekly

Introducing Reciprocal Teaching

When introducing RT to students, the following process can be helpful:

Teacher provides direct strategy instruction
- Introduces, defines, and models the four strategies (summarizing, predicting, questioning and clarifying)
Students become actively involved
- Teacher selects “reader-friendly” texts
- Teacher leads students through interactive dialogue, providing specific wording to model
- Students participate at their own levels, with teacher guidance and feedback
Teacher gradually relinquishes control to students
- Students assume the role of teacher by taking turns leading their peers through the same types of dialogues in small collaborative reading groups discussing more complex texts that they have read independently
- Teacher provides support on an as-needed basis only
- Students eventually begin to internalize the strategies, so that they can use them independently in their own academic reading

Other Approaches to Try

- Fishbowl: Four students in center use Reciprocal Teaching while the rest of the class watches and comments.
- Teacher-Student Model: Teacher models one of the strategies while the rest of the class take on the remaining three strategies.
- Video Model: Record students engaging in Reciprocal Teaching, then critique implementation afterwards with the the whole group.
- Written Model: Watch a video recording and write down what is said and how.

Explore Reciprocal Teaching in Content Areas

Reading

See the Connection with Reciprocal Teaching

Science

See the Connection with Reciprocal Teaching

(alternate link) | Science Role Cards

Math

Article | Video #1 (Alt link) | Video #2

Social Studies

See the Connection with Reciprocal Teaching

Lesson Plan | Video (Alt) | Article

Reciprocal Teaching With Microsoft Flip

Use Microsoft Flip (f.k.a. Flipgrid) to have students model the different roles.

Ask different students to play the role of Predictor, Clarifier, Questioner, Summarizer for a shared text, audio, or video.

Model the four strategies for parents to guide students.

Instead of trying to do all four roles, just ask them to take on the role of Predictor or Questioner.

McREL's Reciprocal Teaching Resources

A request to McREL has been submitted to share the videos with you via a Google Drive given that their site's video links are broken. The request was sent to Jane Hill at McREL on 9/7/2022.

Jane Hill at MCREL, featured in the videos hosted at MCREL, had a wonderful series of tutorial videos online. Due to Google Drive security updates, the links have been changed and "broken" the site's video links.

You can access some of their videos in an archive online, however. Access is subject to change, so watch them quick.

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Fantastic Four: Superhero Learning with Reciprocal Teaching

Facilitator(s): Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin) | https://ly.tcea.org/fan4

Scaffolding student cognition during reading can enhance student achievement. Let's explore a Deep Learning, high-effect size instructional strategy as a way to assist students who...

Let's explore!

What Is It?

Reciprocal Teaching is a deep learning, instructional strategy which aims to foster better reading comprehension and to monitor students who struggle with comprehension.

SOLO Taxonomy - Relational Level

Student can link ideas together to see the big picture

Student seeks meaning, relates and extend ideas

Looks for patterns and underlying principles,

Checks evidence and relates it to conclusions,

Examines arguments cautiously and critically, and

Becomes actively interested in course content.

Deep Learning strategies facilitate students establishing relationships in and among content. Students work to consolidate their understanding, applying and extending surface learning after building requisite knowledge.

It involves deep processing, or "the ability to understand a new concept in terms of already familiar concepts and already familiar connections between them"

(Source: Efrat Furst, Learning in the Brain)

The Four Strategies

The Reciprocal Teaching strategy contains four steps:

Summarizing (d=0.74)

Questioning (d=0.49)

Clarifying, and

Predicting

It is “reciprocal” in that students and the teacher take turns leading a dialogue about the text in question, asking questions following each of the four steps.

The teacher can model the four steps, then reduce her or his involvement so that students take the lead and are invited to go through the four steps after they read a segment of text.

(Source: Visible Learning MetaX)

Read a summary of the research

Why do we need it?

Students should be exposed to broad, wide reading of both fiction and nonfiction:

“We learn to read well by reading a lot for meaning:

to analyze or support arguments, to arrive at our own opinions as we

make inferences or attempt to solve problems.”

Students should be involved in discussions at least three times per week, with established criteria to guide them

Research Summary

If your students face any or all of the following obstacles (adapted from ASCD Publication: Lori D. Oczkus’ Reciprocal Teaching At Work), reciprocal teaching may be what’s needed.

Students don’t remember what they read, even when they can decode text

Little to no engagement with reading material

Students read at two or more years below grade level

Informational text (non-fiction) is difficult to understand

Challenging words are difficult to decipher

Students may be unable to describe the difference between main idea and supporting details

As a result of reciprocal teaching technique’s effectiveness for over thirty years, it is worth adopting

Does It Work?

Looking for a comprehension technique that works across all content areas, media such as news, books, web, and video?

Reciprocal teaching, a research-based collection of strategies, has enjoyed long success (approx 36 years since a study* in 1984).

How Does It Work?

Use reciprocal teaching at least three times per week for three months. All four strategies need to be used in each 15 to 30 minute session to obtain best results.

The creators of the Reciprocal Teaching strategy, Ann Palincsar and Ann Brown (1984, 1986), report that after using RT for just 15-20 days, assessment of students’ reading comprehension increased from thirty percent to seventy to eighty percent.

Sentence Stems

Here are some sample sentence stems. There are many examples on the web.

Summarizing

Predicting

Questioning

Clarifying

More Sentence Stems for reciprocal Teaching

Content To Practice Reciprocal Teaching On

Give It A Go: Trying Out the Four Strategies

Here's a quick activity to try things out:

1 - Select a Text from list below:

2 - Find the Jamboard page for each text

3 - Record Your Thinking

4 - Reflect: How do you feel you did? Why?

Selection #1: Poetry William Carlos Williams' (28w)

Selection #2: NonFictionWhy Do We Sneeze? (221w)

Selection #3: Flash Fiction T. J. Cohen's Einstein (197 w)

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Best Practices

How to Model Reciprocal Teaching to Students

Introducing Reciprocal Teaching

When introducing RT to students, the following process can be helpful:

Selection #1: Poetry
William Carlos Williams' (28w)

Selection #2: NonFiction
Why Do We Sneeze? (221w)

Selection #3: Flash Fiction
T. J. Cohen's Einstein (197 w)