Use Multiple Reading Strategies
While it is important for readers to learn and become proficient at using individual reading strategies, it is also important for them to be capable of using multiple strategies together as students need these skills to comprehend challenging text. Some instructional methods provide students with practice using multiple reading strategies that provides them with a list of strategies to use, teachers them to be flexible in their approach to reading, and allows them to monitor their comprehension (Miller & Veatch, 2011, p. 91-92). Reciprocal teaching and PLAN (predict, locate, add, note) are two such strategies.
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching allows students to monitor their comprehension when reading in small groups by focusing on four strategies - predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. Research has shown that students who are trained to use reciprocal teaching have higher levels of comprehension, that students are more engaged, and when students become proficient can participate in more complex forms of discussion like argumentation and explanation (Miller & Veatch, 2011, p. 93).
Using this strategy in the classroom: 1. Identify an appropriate piece of text that identifies the concepts being addressed 2. Begin the lesson by introducing the text and activating background knowledge. 3. Create groups of 4 students of mixed ability and choose one student to be the leader (teacher or student chosen). 4. Predict - students make predictions about the first section of the text by look at headings, pictures, or the Survey Strategy. 5. Students read the section, stopping to clarify confusing parts. Some reading strategies to use at this point are Interactive Think Aloud, Comprehension Monitoring Strategy Guides, or Cornell Notes. 6. Summarize - The discussion leader facilities to group to create a summary of the section. Strategies to help here include Written, Oral, or Visual Summaries. 7. Questions - The discussion leader also facilities to group to determine if they can answer questions pertaining to the text. QAR can be used in this step. 8. The group then repeats the strategy for the remaining sections. How writing is tied to this strategy: Students can be provided with handouts like the one to the left where they can record their group's discussions on the different sections. In completing these types of handouts, students will be writing to record their predictions, notes on the main ideas from the passage, summaries, and questions they write along with their answers. |
Reciprocal Teaching
In this video, the teacher discusses his use of reciprocal teaching in his English 3 class with students who struggle. He addresses how he implements this in the class with the improvements he saw with his class. There are also some excerpts from the class of students using the strategy, |
(USDLC, 2007)
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(Waltke, 2014)
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Reciprocal Teaching - An Introduction for Students
In this video, the four rolls used during reciprocal teaching are discussed along with their responsibilities. In addition, sentence starters and guiding questions are included to help get students started. This would be especially beneficial as students first start out using this strategy until they become more familiar with the rolls. I could see using this as an introductory video with the students. |