reciprocal teaching: a strategy for the 21st century · pdf file ·...

Reciprocal Teaching: a strategy for the 21st Century

Wolmarans, AR

CCEE (Curro Centre for Educational Excellence)

Abstract 3

1. Introduction 4

2. What is Reciprocal Teaching? 4

3. What are the possible pitfalls of Reciprocal Teaching? 6

4. What is the research base for Reciprocal Teaching? 6

5. How to implement Reciprocal Teaching effectively 6

6. Where to start tomorrow 7

7. FindingsandbenefitsofReciprocalTeaching 8

6. Conclusion 8

References 9

CONTENTS

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ABSTRACTReciprocal Teaching is characterised as a dialogue that takes place between the teacher and learner (or learner leader and members of the group) that results in learners’ learning how to construct meaning when they are placed in must-read situations. Reciprocal Teaching derives from the theory that reading for meaning and retention − what is referred to as study reading − requires effort, a full repertoire of comprehension strategies and the flexibility to use these strategies as the situation requires. The dialogues incorporate four strategies: predicting, clarifying, generating questions and summarising (Carter, 1997).

This article challenges 21st Century teachers to implement strategies such as Reciprocal Teaching, not only in reading, but in everyday teaching praxis to improve successful learning amongst their learners. This article also provides an overview of learners’ reading comprehension in the Intermediate Phase. CCEE (Curro Centre for Educational Excellence) concludes that when this strategy is implemented, learners engaged at a deeper level with the text, resulting in reading with comprehension. The 21st Century teachers should value Reciprocal Teaching and implement it in their everyday teaching praxis. This holds important implications for learners as they are being prepared for success in their studies, especially as regards their ability to understand, construct and reconstruct meaning within different texts.

KEYWORDSReciprocal Teaching, Instructional method, Explicit teaching, Predicting, Clarifying, Questioning, Summarising, Comprehension, 21st Century

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2. WHAT IS RECIPROCAL TEACHING?Palincsar and Brown (1984) designed the Reciprocal strategy. Through guided practice and modelling the process, the in-structor introduces the four key compo nents of this stra tegy: predicting, clarifying, ques tion generation and summarising to increase learners reading comprehension. The research of Palincsar and Brown has demonstrated im proved compre-hension for learners from first grade to adult-hood in both immediate and long-term metacognition of comprehension.

The uses of this strategy allow children to enhance their inferential understanding at word level, sentence level and at text level. The strategy also promotes children’s independence in terms of reading with understanding by allowing them to

follow their teacher’s example and gradually adopt their teacher’s role and style of questioning (Greenway, 2002).

Before learners can use the Reciprocal strategy with any measure of success, they must be allowed enough time and learning space to practice the process. Therefore, to utilise this strategy the teacher begins by demonstrating and showing when and how to use the strategy.

The teacher should explain to learners that they will be introduced to four strategies that good readers use to comprehend text – predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising, as seen in the diagram below.

1. INTRODUCTIONIn postmodern societies, most people regard reading as an ordinary and everyday responsibility to which little thought needs to be afforded. There is, however, a case to be made that reading forms the foundation for all further learning. For this reason, it could be argued that reading remains one of the most important skills that learners should acquire at school. Unlike the ability to speak, reading is not an innate, inherited, congenital skill. A learner does not acquire the ability to read simply by watching someone read or listening to someone reading out loud. Many of our day-to-day responsibilities require reading, and recent scholarly research confirms that a person who is able to read well, more often than not functions more effectively in society.

There is at present a national outcry about the increasing number of learners whose reading literacy levels are not on grade level. Again, research has confirmed that low levels of reading skills have an effect on learner performance in Grade 12 (Spaull, 2013). It makes sense, therefore, to plead with all relevant authorities to help ensure that all learners exit the Foundation Phase and

enters the Intermediate Phase with a solid foundation of knowledge and concomitant skills as regards the development of reading and written language. Sadly, the available evidence shows that this is often not the case.

This problem can be addressed by implementing an instructional method which learners can use to improve their own reading comprehension and other aspects of their learning; a method that will assist them to engage at a deep level of understanding with any type of written text. Providing them with such a method (or set of related strategies) will empower them for the rest of their lives.

It is against this backdrop that CCEE argues that all learners will benefit from the Reciprocal Teaching strategy, provided that their teachers are willing to embrace this strategy as part and parcel of their own teaching repertoire.

Reading is a basic skill for all academic subjects and academic failure at school level can often be traced back to inadequate reading skills and reading comprehension. On this, the available scholarly literature unanimously agrees.

Figure 1: The Four Strategies of Reciprocal Teaching

RECIPROCAL TEACHING

QUESTIONINGPREDICTING CONFIRM

REVISE

CLARIFYING SUMMARISING

Learners pose questions before, during and after reading the text.Questioning plays an important role in self-monitoring, as learners

ask themselves: “Does this make sense?”Determine the author’s goal with the text and its intended

audience.

Make smart guesses about what is coming up next, using clues such as titles, from over, headings an pictures.

Confirm or revise predictions before, during and after reading.

Identify the main idea/s and supporting detail in the text. Learners need to be shown how to identify the main idea/s use key

information, take notes and retell a shorten version in their own words.

Clarify something you don’t understand.

Learners make concerted attempts to clarify concepts or vocabulary that is not understood.


Learners use their experiences and prior knowledge to generate predictions, to make smart guesses about what is coming up next, using clues such as titles, the front cover, headings and pictures. Learners predict what the text is about before reading and then check their prediction during reading. Through clarifying, the learners reread the text and interaction with other class members gains important information about the text. They stop to clarify unknown words or ideas during reading.

By asking questions, during and after reading, learners probe deeper into the content of the text. Questioning plays an important role in self-monitoring as learners ask themselves: “Does this make sense?” to check their own understanding. With subsequently summarising either a page or the entire text, the learners develop critical thinking skills (Stricklin, 2011:1).

Learners are gradually encouraged to take on the teacher’s role as they become more confident and proficient with this strategy (Palincsar and Brown, 1984).

Teachers demonstrate to learners how to predict, how to clarify, how to ask “teacher questions”, and how to summa-rise. In this regard, 21st Century teachers should recognise that they have three primary responsibilities during Reci-procal Teaching:

2.1. Before reading, activate prior knowledge of words or ideas that learners are going to encounter while reading.2.2. During reading, monitor, guide and encourage indivi- duals or groups in their use of the four strategies:

• Predicting motivates learners to read and it helps them to form a purpose for reading.

• Clarifying words and ideas helps learners to make con nections between different sections of the text, rather than skipping unknown words and ideas.

• Questioning promotes learners’ comprehension, be cause learners must be able to understand what they have read, in order for them to start asking their peers high-order questions.

• Summarising helps learners to concentrate on the main idea and supporting details of the text.

2.3 After reading, encourage learner-reflection and ask the learners to share which strategy they thought had hel ped them the most and why.

Prof. John Hattie synthesised over 500 000 studies related to learner achievement. He showed that teachers can make a difference by embracing Reciprocal Teaching as a strategy in their classrooms. According to Hattie, Reciprocal Teaching can be considered as a high-impact, evidence-based teaching strategy. It is also an explicit metacognitive strategy. The 21st Century teachers should, therefore, not only implement this strategy, but they should also commit to implement it in their own everyday teaching praxis (Hattie, 2009).

Hattie’s research (Hattie, 2009) has demonstrated that Reci-procal Teaching has an effect size of 0.74 (high effect size) and that repeated use leads to improved learning outcomes. A “high” effect size is an effect which is big enough, and/or consistent enough, that you may be able to see it “with the naked eye”. For example, just by looking at a room full of people, you’d probably be able to tell that on average, the men were taller than the women – this is what is meant by an effect which can be seen with the naked eye. An effect is the result of something. It is an outcome, a result, a reaction, a change in Y brought about by a change in X (Ellis, 2010). It emphasises that teachers should enable all their learners to understand and use strategies such as predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarising in order to improve their reading comprehension. Dialogue between the teacher and learners around different texts are equally important. In this regard, learners should also be guided by their teacher in taking turns to role-play as the “teacher” in introducing and subsequently leading dialogue that is specifically designed to bring meaning to the written word.

During the entire process, their teacher will keep offering assistance so as to allow the learners to learn how to monitor their own learning and thinking (Hattie, 2009).

Figure 2: Reciprocal Teaching: A high-impact Strategy (Hattie, 2009)

Student ControlOver Learning

0 0.15 0.4 0.9

TeachingTest Taking

MasteryLearning Spaced

Practice

Teaching Problem-solving

Reciprocal Teaching

Problem-based Learning

Low

Inquiry Learning

Typical

Concept Mapping& Worked Examples

Feedback

High Impact

Metacognition

Note Taking & Direct Instruction


3. WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE PITFALLS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING? Although Reciprocal Teaching is an effective instructional strategy to enhance comprehension, engage learners in their learning and apply various strategies, there are some pitfalls. Using this instructional strategy cannot be a once-off activity. There must be enough time for learners to transfer strategies learned in reading and listening settings to different kinds of texts. Not all learners internalise the strategies at the same time (Todd & Tracey, 2006). Teachers must be confident in teaching this method, otherwise the lack of clarity about how to implement Reciprocal Teaching, can strain the process. Another constraint to Reciprocal Teaching is the attention-seeking behaviour of learners – it makes group work difficult (Greenway, 2002).

Let’s have a bird’s eye on attention-seeking behaviour. Some learners misbehave during group work sessions because they are trying to attract teacher attention. Many learners who value adult attention don’t really care if it is positive or nega-tive attention – they just want attention! Teachers can deal with this attention-seeking behaviour by ignoring it, while

at the same time “randomly” giving the learner positive attention. That is, the learner receives regular positive teacher attention but at times unconnected to misbehaviour. So the learner still gets the adult attention that he craves. The link between learner misbehaviour and resulting negative teacher attention is broken (Intervention central). The more you’re able to meet learners’ attention needs with actions rather than words, the more orderly your classroom. A smile, a frown, a thumbs-up, a thumbs-down, a raised eyebrow, a note, close proximity to learners needing redirection or assistance – just a few of many non-verbal ways to give learners attention without any disruption (Ginsburg, 2011).

Some teachers expressed concern about the process of Reciprocal Teaching and the time it took to follow the process. The teaching of strategies is also a concern of Reciprocal Teaching; the level of the text impact how strategies are taught. Learners may have problems mas-tering strategies and applying if passages they read are challenging.

4. WHAT IS THE RESEARCH BASE FOR RECIPROCAL TEACHING?Just like dieting or anything else, once a week is not effective for Reciprocal Teaching to take hold. Reciprocal Teaching yields the best results if learners use the strategies at least twice per week.

Amongst others, research reveals the following:

• After 15 – 20 days of instruction, Palincsar and Brown (1984) saw learners progress from scoring 30% to

scoring 80% on a reading comprehension assessment.• After 76 lessons, learners improved by one to two read ing

levels (Oczkus, 2005).

• Rosenshine and Meister (1994) reviewed 16 studies of Reciprocal Teaching and concluded that Reciprocal Teaching is an instructional method that can help learners improve their reading comprehension (Oczkus, 2013).

5. HOW TO IMPLEMENT RECIPROCAL TEACHING EFFECTIVELYThe Reciprocal Teaching strategy has been recognised as a valuable teaching method by many researchers, reading teachers and educators because it is a form of systematic training in strategies that help less efficient readers improve their reading comprehension and become independent readers (Ahmadi & Gilakjani, 2012).

A reading comprehension strategy can be defined as a “game plan”– a plan of action that is used by a reader to extract the meaning from any type of text. While reading a text, the learner should keep in mind his reciting voice, conversation voice, interacting voice and also the distracting voice (Leesnet, 2015:21). This will help them focus and it will also help them to answer and practise the four sub-strategies of Reciprocal Teaching, as mentioned above. Metacognition (i.e. the ability to think about one’s own thinking), is also an essential component of Reciprocal Teaching.

Ostovar-Namaghi & Shahhosseini (2011:1240) suggest the following step-by-step process of Reciprocal Teaching. The teacher:

• Explains the strategy (what the strategy is, and how, when and why to use it (follow the diagram below);

• Breaks the classroom into mixed-ability small groups and leads a discussion of the text;

• Designates one learner to role-play as the “teacher” within each small group. This learner will help keep their small group on task and ensure that they move through each of the four steps as they read the text that has already been divided into smaller chunks;

• Reads the first chunk to all the small groups, modelling and demonstrating (follow diagram below) the four comprehension strategies of Reciprocal Teaching;

• Uses this dialogue to foster both reading comprehension and the learners’ awareness of the strategies;

• Encourages the learners to read a section of the text in their small groups and to ask questions about both the text and the strategies;

• Encourages the learners to share (guided practice) the expe -rience of deconstructing the text (follow diagram below);

• Gradually releases the responsibility towards the lear-ners to engage with the text. She now assumes the role of guide or facilitator, rather than that of the leader.

• The learners practise and apply the strategy in their small groups. They continue the process of reading, dialoguing and clarifying throughout the entire text.

Eventually the learner is able to use text at an independent level – make meaning of text by him or herself, not depending on the teacher any longer (see diagram below).


TEACHING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

EXPLAINS THE STRATEGY(what the strategy is, and how, when and why to use it)

MODELS AND DEMONSTRATES(using think-alouds)

GUIDED PRACTICE(scaffold; use text at

instructional level)

PRACTICES AND APPLIES(use text at independent level)

Figure 3: Gradual Release of Responsibility Adapted from Pearson and Fielding (1991, 815 - 860)

Figure 4: A Conceptual Map of Reciprocal Teaching (Daforno, 2013:13)

Provides examples of effective strategy use

Shared experience

Primarily educator Educator and learner Primarily learner

PHASE 1

Group to educator Independent groups

Access prior knowledge

Text features

Make predictions

Mind main ideas

Q&A

Clarify

Metacognitive strategies

PHASE 2

Educator becomes expert scaffolder

Learners fill out helping worksheets

Act out reciprocal teaching in a group

Group learners use cue cards

Educator support is reduced

Provide direct instruction

and encourage group work

using strategies.

6. WHERE TO START TOMORROW The diagram below illustrates the phases in which Reci-procal Teaching occurs. The first phase is to introduce the strategies one at a time. All of the strategies are organised by typical thought process: before (pre-reading strategies), during and after reading strategies a segment. During the pre-reading strategy the teacher prompt questions that will access learner’s prior knowledge by looking and noting the title, author, cover illustrations or graphics within the text. During reading the learners focus on the main idea of the text and ask questions of the author or about the content of the reading.

After reading the text, learners use metacognitive strategies by clarifying confusing parts of the text that doesn’t make sense. The teacher provides direct instruction and encourages group work.

In the second phase the teacher becomes the expert scaf-folder. The learners engage with the text by completing a helping worksheet. They work in their small group, using the cue cards of the different roles of each member in the group.

The teacher’s support is reduced; the learners now work on an independent level.

Post-reading strategies

Pre-reading strategies

During reading

strategies

Introduce individual strategy

components


Amelia Wolmarans

7. FINDINGS AND BENEFITS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHINGReciprocal Teaching is considered a breakthrough as an instructional method or strategy. It is supported by over 30 years of research and it still stands out as a centre stage teaching strategy. The benefits for using Reciprocal Teaching are summarised as below:

Reciprocal Teaching has been regarded as effective in helping learners improve their reading ability. According to Bruer (1993), Reciprocal Teaching helps novice readers learn and internalise the strategies that excellent readers usually employ. This strategy is easily understood and mastered by both teachers and learners. All it takes is for teachers to model the strategy and to assist the learners towards independent reading practice via guided reading practice.

It stands to reason that learners should be equipped with the language of discussion first before they are allowed to engage with Reciprocal Teaching.

Most importantly, Reciprocal Teaching echoes the most recent scholarly understanding of reading (Bruer,1993).

This understanding describes the reading process as being essentially interactive, because the learners-as-readers interact with the text. At the same time, meaning is constructed when they discuss what they have read, as well as what they are reading within the safe dialogical space of their separate groups. It is also a multi-purpose instructional and key method for all learners to improve in foundation literacy, language and deeper thinking skills, as they learn to cope with and understand challenging text and curriculum content. Although Reciprocal Teaching can be used in any subject, it is especially beneficial while teaching Literacy, Social Studies and Natural Science. Learners are interactive rather than just listening to the teacher for long periods of time. Learners become empowered and self-managing leaders. Even fringe learners become active class members and develop cooperative leadership skills. Reciprocal Teaching can enhance skills central to resilience building, wholesome community participation and leadership and lifelong learning (Westera, 2014).

8.CONCLUSIONReciprocal Teaching promises to be a useful instructional strategy to implement in classrooms when practising meta -cognitive reading strategies. Therefore, 21st Century teach-ers should seriously consider implementing this particular strategy in their own classes. Teachers are responsible for mana g ing and monitoring student lear ning. They know the learners whom they teach and also how to teach their subjects to these learners. By implementing Reciprocal Teach -ing, learners learn how to engage at a deep level of under-standing with a variety of text types. In the process, their reading-related comprehension improves progressively. The 21st Century teachers can develop and improve good read ing comprehension skills when they implement the

Reciprocal Teaching strategy during their own teaching activities.

To summarise, Reciprocal Teaching is a multi-purpose pack-age of strategies that can be used to accelerate learning, especially in deeper thinking skills – all within a short timeframe if well implemented. It seems that the Reciprocal Teaching strategy is in tune with the heartbeat of language itself because language is a mechanism for constructing meaning in the dialogical process of negotiation and interaction with the text. Taking these merits of Reciprocal Teaching into account, the researcher recommends the implementation of this method in Curro schools.


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ELLIS, P.D. (2010) “Effect Size FAQs”. Available from:http://www.effectsizefaq.com [Accessed: 6th August 2015].

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OSTOVAR-NAMAGHI, S.A., & SHAHHOSSEINI, M.R. (2011) On the Effect of Reciprocal Teaching Strategy on EFL Learners’ read Proficiency. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 2, No 6, p 1238-1243.

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