A N N W O L F , P R O F E S S I O N A L E D U C A T O R

A N N . W O L F @ C E N G A G E . C O M

Reciprocal Reading: A Best Practice for Comprehension

Expectations

What do you expect your students to do when you assign reading? Have you ever provided or taught strategies for reading text to

your students?

How did it work?

What do you think your students expect to do when reading?

Have you asked your students what strategies they know to help them read and comprehend?

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way

because the experience of reading is not passive.

Erica Jong

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to …

Understand Reciprocal Reading/Teaching

Practice using the 4 strategies in Reciprocal Reading

Review the research related to using Reciprocal Reading

Reciprocal Reading/Teaching

Definition:

Instructional procedure designed to enhance students’

reading comprehension. This dialogue is structured by the

use of four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying

and summarizing (Palinscar, David & Brown, 1989 in Hashey &

Connors, 2003).

Reciprocal Reading/Teaching

Purpose:

To facilitate a group effort between teacher and students,

as well as among students in the task of bringing

meaning to the text. Within these strategies students

have the opportunity to monitor their comprehension.

Comprised of 4 Strategies

Predicting: Using available information to make an educational guess about what might be happening next.

Questioning: Maintaining an inquiry focus before, during and after reading.

Clarifying: Monitoring comprehension to understand the authors meaning in the text. Also, define unfamiliar words in the text.

Summarizing: Identifying the major points and ideas from a selection.

Process of Reciprocal Reading

PREDICT

QUESTION GENERATION

CLARIFY

SUMMARIZE

CONTINUE THE

PROCESS DURING

READING

Predicting

Students recall what they already know about a topic and hypothesize about what might happen next.

Then they read the material to confirm, disprove or revise the hypothesis.

Questioning

Students create and ask questions about the text at many levels.

Skinny vs. Fat questions

Literal, Inferential and Applied

Clarifying

Identify words or concepts that don’t make sense and look for the answers.

Discussion and small group activity.

Summarizing

• Readers are ask to identify the most important information or the “gist of the text.”

• Readers are asked to paraphrase the information not just recall what was in the reading.

Practice with Text

Skim the article in the handout.

Make prediction(s)

Ask questions to prompt reading or follow-up on reading

Clarify unknown words

Summarize

Research Reveals

Reciprocal Teaching/Reading is a continual process of learning, not linear. (Hashey & Connors, 2003).

Reciprocal Teaching is significantly superior to control reading techniques. (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994)

Research Reveals (cont.)

Provides strategies the when taught explicitly and then practiced on actual reading materials provides students with deeper comprehension.

The dialogue with instructor scaffolds and/or supports learning.

References

Hashey, J. M. & Connors, D. J. (2003). Learn form your journal: Reciprocal teaching

action research.

The Reading Teacher. 57(3), 224-232.

Oczkus, L. D. (2003). Reciprocal teaching at work. Newark, DE: International Reading

Association.

Palincsar, A.S., & Brown, A.L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering

and comprehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), 117–175.

Rosenshine, B. & Meister, C. (1994). Reciprocal teaching: A review of the research.

Review of Educational Research. 64(4), 479-530.

Comments and/or Questions