Reciprocal Teaching for All Content Areas
Facilitator(s): Miguel Guhlin (@mglearn)
Return - http://ly.tcea.org/rtc
Session Description
Discover why John Hattie ranked reciprocal teaching as one of the most powerful teaching and learning strategies and how you can implement it in your classroom.
Let's get started!
session outline
Exploring the Research
What Is It?
Why Do We Need It?
Does It Work?
How Does It Work?
Classroom Implementation Approaches
Models Available
Across Content Areas
Resources
Questions?
Exploring the Research
What Is It?
"A deep learning, instructional strategy which aims to foster better reading comprehension and to monitor students who struggle with comprehension. The strategy contains four steps: summarizing, questioning, 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)
WhY DO WE NEED IT?
In the early years, students need time to read, not to do skills drills or reading “activities.” Schmoker points out that in the most effective reading classrooms, students “never, ever engage in cut, color, or paste activities that now occupy the majority of early-grade reading programs—more than 100 instructional hours per year.”
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
A longitudinal study of 26,000 students found that less than 20% of students who were in the bottom quarter of reading achievement (0–24th national percentile) in third grade went on to attend college.
At the other end of the scale, nearly 60% of the students who were in the top quarter of reading achievement (75th–100th national percentile) enrolled in college.
In other words, the strongest readers—students who were in the top quarter of reading achievement in third grade—were nearly three times more likely to enroll in college than peers who struggled with reading and were in the bottom quarter of reading achievement.
Additional points to consider
In 2015, out of 72 countries surveyed, the U.S. placed 24th in reading, 41st in mathematics and 25th in science
Educational Testing Service (ETS) administered a survey to see how millennials in the U.S. workforce compared to millennials in the workforces of other countries.
Millennials will be the core of our workforce for years to come, and the U.S. economy will depend on them.
The ETS survey showed that Americans ages 16-34 in the PIAAC survey were at the bottom in every category:
reading
numeracy
problem solving
These results show that the U.S. now has one of the worst educated workforces in the industrialized world (Goodman, Sands, & Coley, 2017 as cited in Marc Tucker's Leading High-Performance School Systems).
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 over thirty years of success.
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.
According to John Hattie, as cited in the Foreword of Lori D. Oczkus’ book, Reciprocal Teaching At Work, the “Fab Four,” as the four strategies are known, enable and require students to perform deeper processing of what they read. (Source: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Powerful Strategies and Lessons for Improving Reading Comprehension, 3rd Edition, by Lori D. Oczkus. © 2020 ASCD. All Rights Reserved.)
What’s more, students must engage in making sense of what they read, to be aware of when they did not understand content. They also must do additional reading or searching when they encounter comprehension challenges.
Across type of test (standardized, etc.), regardless of teacher, grade level, there was no significant difference. Reciprocal teaching proved effective for all ages and situations.
HOW DOES it Work?
The Reciprocal Teaching Treatment
Want to see dramatic results in your students? Use reciprocal teaching at least three times per week for three months.
The creators of the Reciprocal Teaching strategy, Ann Palincsar and Ann Brown (1984, 1986) for just 15-20 days, assessment of students’ reading comprehension increase from thirty percent to seventy to eighty percent.
All four strategies need to be used in each 15 to 30 minute session to obtain best results.
Below are two examples of reciprocal teaching. While reciprocal teaching can be used when reading anything, or viewing videos, it also can be adapted for use in mathematics classes.
Classroom Implementation
Best Practices
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
Remote Learning Suggestions
Use 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 Fab Four 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.
Don't limit yourself, students, or parents to text alone. Use the resources shown right to access non-fiction, fiction,
AudibleStories_Listenwise.mp4Amazon Prime Video Free Family Titles: Whether you have Amazon Prime or not, a free Amazon account gets you and your child(ren) access to free family titles.
12-Story Learning: Offers their entire ebook collection for free.
ABDO Digital: ABDO's entire eBook collection is now available to students to access at home FREE.
Actively Learn: This is a digital curriculum platform for grades 6-12 ELA, SS, and Science. Our catalog includes over 3,000 texts, videos, and simulations that include embedded questions, scaffolding notes, and multimedia to support all learners. We also seamlessly integrate with Google Classroom.
Audible: Audible Stories is now offering, at no charge, a collection of audio stories. Stories are organized into a variety of categories.
Buncee Learning: Get free access to Buncee Classroom if you are in an affected area.
Listenwise is a web-based resource for three to six minute podcast lessons from non-fiction storytellers that include listening comprehension quizzes for your classroom.
Ranger Rick Magazine: Need some exciting reading material? One of my childhood favorites was the Ranger Rick Magazine. They are offering three months of free access to all games, jokes, videos, awesome animal articles. This offer is good through June 30, 2020. Sign up online.
Explore Reciprocal Teaching in Content Areas
Resources
Get the Strategies That Work app and tap on the "Reciprocal Teaching" tab at the bottom.
