Get ready to supercharge your students' reading skills with the power of reciprocal teaching! 🚀📚 This deep learning, high-effect size instructional strategy is like a secret weapon for students who struggle with reading. 💪
Imagine a classroom where students who once forgot what they read, felt disconnected from the text, or were years behind in reading level are now actively engaged and thriving. 🌟 That's the magic of reciprocal teaching!
Through the four key strategies of predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing, students become active participants in their own learning. 🤔💡 They'll learn to tackle even the most challenging non-fiction texts with confidence and ease. 💪📖
Session Resources
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Group Activities
3-2-1 Activity
Resources for 3-2-1 Activity
Directions: Gather 3 facts, 2 quotes, and ask 1 question you have. Use print or digital copy available.
Watch ONE of the following videos:
Or, Read one:
Discuss:
Share your 3-2-1 notes from the resource you viewed or read with your team
Activity #2: Give It A Try
Ready to Give It A Try?
Get into small groups of five or six people each. Each person assumes one of the following roles:
Lead Speaker - Introduces the Fab Four group, and explains and discusses (like a news broadcaster) what we will be seeing to the Videographer
Predictor - Predicts what will happen in the reading
Questioner - Asks questions about the reading
Clarifier - Clarifies answers and vocabulary
Summarizer - Summarizes the reading
Videographer - Uses the camera app on a smartphone to capture team members modeling the Reciprocal Teaching strategy.
Content To Practice Reciprocal Teaching On
- Practice #1 - NonFiction:
- Practice #2 - Video:
- Practice #3 -Fiction:
Digging Deeper - Explore the Resources
What Is It?
"A deep learning, instructional strategy which aims to foster better reading comprehension and to monitor students who struggle with comprehension. The Reciprocal Teaching strategy contains four steps:
- 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
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?
Web-based Reciprocal Teaching Resources
Explore Reciprocal Teaching in Content Areas
