Enhancing Reading Comprehension through Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching is a powerful instructional method designed to foster reading comprehension through collaborative dialogue between educators and students. Rooted in the work of Annemarie Palincsar, this approach aims to empower students with specific reading strategies, such as Questioning, Clarifying, Summarizing, and Predicting, to actively construct meaning from text (Palincsar, 1986).^[1]

Research indicates that reciprocal teaching promotes students' reading comprehension by encouraging active engagement and critical thinking during the reading process (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994).^[2] By engaging in dialogue with teachers and peers, students deepen their understanding of text and develop essential literacy skills (Palincsar, 1986).

Reciprocal teaching unfolds as a collaborative dialogue where teachers and students take turns assuming the role of teacher (Palincsar, 1986). This interactive approach is most effective in small-group settings, facilitated by educators or reading tutors who guide students through the comprehension process (Palincsar, 1986).

In practice, reciprocal teaching empowers students to become active participants in their own learning, fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility for their academic success (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). By engaging in meaningful dialogue and employing specific reading strategies, students develop the skills necessary to comprehend and analyze complex texts effectively.

Reciprocal teaching is best represented as a dialogue between teachers and students in which participants take turns assuming the role of teacher.^[3] -Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar

Reciprocal teaching stands as a valuable tool for educators seeking to enhance students' reading comprehension skills. By fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and active engagement, this approach equips students with the tools they need to succeed academically and beyond.

Enhancing Reading Comprehension through Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching is an evidence-based instructional approach designed to enhance reading comprehension by actively engaging students in four key strategies: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing (Oczkus, 2005). Coined as the "fab four" by Oczkus,^[4] these strategies empower students to take an active role in constructing meaning from text (Stricklin, 2011).

Predicting involves students making educated guesses about the content of the text before reading, activating prior knowledge and setting the stage for comprehension (Oczkus, 2005). Clarifying entails addressing areas of confusion or uncertainty by asking questions and seeking clarification from the teacher or peers (Stricklin, 2011). Questioning involves students generating questions about the text to deepen understanding and promote critical thinking (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). Summarizing requires students to synthesize key information from the text and articulate it in their own words, reinforcing comprehension and retention (Stricklin, 2011).^[5]

Throughout the reciprocal teaching process, teachers provide support and guidance to students, reinforcing their responses and facilitating meaningful dialogue (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994).^[6] This collaborative approach fosters a supportive learning environment where students feel empowered to actively engage with text and construct meaning collaboratively (Oczkus, 2005).

Research suggests that reciprocal teaching is effective in improving reading comprehension across diverse student populations (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). By incorporating active engagement, dialogue, and metacognitive strategies, reciprocal teaching equips students with the skills they need to comprehend and analyze complex texts effectively (Oczkus, 2005).

Reciprocal teaching is an amalgamation of reading strategies that effective readers are thought to use. As stated by Pilonieta and Medina in their article "Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades: We Can Do It, Too!", previous research conducted by Kincade and Beach (1996) indicates that proficient readers use specific comprehension strategies in their reading tasks, while poor readers do not (Pilonieta & Medina, 2009). Proficient readers have well-practiced decoding and comprehension skills which allow them to proceed through texts somewhat automatically until some sort of triggering event alerts them to a comprehension failure (Palincsar & Brown, 1984).

This trigger can be anything from an unacceptable accumulation of unknown concepts to an expectation that has not been fulfilled by the text. Whatever the trigger, proficient readers react to a comprehension breakdown by using a number of strategies in a planned, deliberate manner. These "fix-up" strategies range from simply slowing down the rate of reading or decoding, to re-reading, to consciously summarizing the material. Once the strategy (or strategies) has helped to restore meaning in the text, the successful reader can proceed again without conscious use of the strategy (Palincsar & Brown).

All readers—no matter how skilled—occasionally reach cognitive failure when reading texts that are challenging, unfamiliar, or "inconsiderate"—i.e. structured or written in an unusual manner (Garner, 1992; Wade, 2001). Poor readers, on the other hand, do not demonstrate the same reaction when comprehension failure occurs. Some simply do not recognize the triggers that signal comprehension breakdown. Others are conscious that they do not understand the text, but do not have or are unable to employ strategies that help. Some use maladaptive strategies (such as avoidance) that do not aid in comprehension (Garner, 1992). Mayer notes in his paper on Learning Strategies that reciprocal teaching can help even novice learners become more adept at utilizing learning strategies and furthering their understanding of a subject (1996). Mayer also notes that the reciprocal teaching process gives the students the chance to learn more by having the teachers as role models, and that the reciprocal teaching process gives beginners in an academic field a chance to learn from the experts by taking turns leading the class (Mayer, 1996).

Approaching the problem from the perspective of Cognitive Strategy Instruction (Slater & Horstman, 2002), reciprocal teaching attempts to train students in specific and discrete strategies to prevent cognitive failure during reading. Palincsar and Brown (1984) identified four basic strategies that may help students recognize and react to signs of comprehension breakdown: Questioning, Clarifying, Summarizing, and Predicting. These strategies serve dual purposes of being both comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring; that is, they are thought to enhance comprehension while at the same time affording students the opportunity to check whether it is occurring. The leader follows these four steps in this specific order:

Reciprocal teaching follows a dialogic/dialectic process. Palincsar, Ransom, and Derber (1989) wrote that there were two reasons for choosing dialogue as the medium. First, it is a language format with which children are familiar (as opposed to writing, which may be too difficult for some struggling readers). Second, dialogue provides a useful vehicle for alternating control between teacher and students in a systematic and purposeful manner.

Reciprocal teaching illustrates a number of unique ideas for teaching and learning and is based on both developmental and cognitive theories. The strategies embedded in reciprocal teaching represent those that successful learners engage in while interacting with text. They are thought to encourage self-regulation and self-monitoring and promote intentional learning (Brown, 1980).^[9]

Reciprocal teaching also follows a very scaffolded curve, beginning with high levels of teacher instruction, modeling, and input, which is gradually withdrawn to the point that students are able to use the strategies independently. Reciprocal teaching begins with the students and teacher reading a short piece of text together. In the beginning stages, the teacher models the "Fab Four" strategies required by reciprocal teaching, and teacher and students share in conversation to come to a mutual agreement about the text (Williams, 2011). The teacher then specifically and explicitly models his or her thinking processes out loud, using each of the four reading strategies. Students follow the teacher's model with their own strategies, also verbalizing their thought processes for the other students to hear.

Over time, the teacher models less and less frequently as students become more adept and confident with the strategies. Eventually, responsibility for leading the small-group discussions of the text and the strategies is handed over to the students. This gives the teacher or reading tutor the opportunity to diagnose strengths, weaknesses, misconceptions, and to provide follow-up as needed.

Reciprocal teaching encompasses several techniques involving the who, what, and where, of learning (Mayer, 475-476):^[10]

• What is learned are cognitive strategies for reading comprehension rather than specific facts and procedures. The teaching focuses on how to learn rather than what to learn.
• Learning of the cognitive strategies occurs within real reading comprehension tasks rather than having each strategy taught in isolation. Learning takes place in an order, rather than learning everything separately.
• Students learn as apprentices within a cooperative learning group that is working together on a task. The students are learning through themselves, and through the others in their group.

The reciprocal teaching model has been in use for the past 20 years (Williams, 2011) and has been adopted by a number of school districts and reading intervention programs across the United States and Canada. It has also been used as the model for a number of commercially produced reading programs such as Soar to Success, Connectors, Into Connectors. Unfortunately, according to Williams, most students and teachers in this country have "never even heard of it" (2011). Available from Global Ed in New Zealand, written by Jill Eggleton is the Connectors and Into Connectors Series. These two series have both non fiction and fiction text. (2015) Abrams Learning Trends publishers Key Links Peer Readers by Jill Eggleton (2016)

Reciprocal teaching is also being adopted and researched in countries other than the United States. For example, Yu-Fen Yang of Taiwan conducted a study to develop a reciprocal teaching/learning strategy in remedial English reading classes (2010). Yang's study concluded that "...students expressed that they observed and learned from the teacher’s or their peers’ externalization of strategy usage. Students’ reading progress in the remedial instruction incorporating the RT system was also identified by the pre- and post-tests. This study suggests that there may be benefits for teachers in encouraging students to interact with others in order to clarify and discuss comprehension questions and constantly monitor and regulate their own reading" (2010).

In a 2008 study presented effective implementation of reciprocal teaching to students diagnosed with mild to moderate forms of disability. Within this group, ten percent of students had difficulty in learning due to Down Syndrome. The average of the participants was around eighteen years of age. The researchers, Miriam Alfassi, Itzhak Weiss, and Hefziba Lifshitz, developed a study based on Palincsar and Brown's design of reciprocal teaching for students who were considered academically too low for the complex skills of reading comprehension. The study compared two styles of teaching, remediation/direct instruction to Palincsar/Brown reciprocal teaching. After twelve weeks of instruction and assessments, reciprocal teaching was found to produce a greater success rate in improving the literacy skills in the participants with mild to moderate learning disabilities. After the study was completed, researchers recommended reciprocal teaching so that students are taught in an interactive environment that includes meaningful and connected texts. This research for the European Journal of Special Needs Education, promotes reciprocal teaching for its structure in dialogues and how students learn to apply those dialogues based on the reading taking place in instruction.^[11]

Currently in the United States research has also been conducted on the use of reciprocal teaching in primary grades. Pilonieta and Medina conducted a series of procedures to implement their version of reciprocal teaching in elementary school students (2009). The researchers adopted an age-appropriate model for reciprocal teaching and called it "Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades", or RTPG (2009). Their research shows that even in younger children, reciprocal teaching apparently benefited the students and they showed retention of the RTPG when re-tested six months later (2009).

Reciprocal teaching has been heralded as effective in helping students improve their reading ability in pre-post trials or research studies (Pearson & Doyle, 1987; Pressley et al., 1987)^[12] Further trials employing Reciprocal Teaching have consistently indicated the technique promotes reading comprehension as measured on standardized reading tests (Carter, 1997).

In "Thought and Language" Lev Vygotsky claims that the profound connection between (oral) language, cognition and learning. Refer to Learning by Teaching for additional evidence. The intensive oral language component in Reciprocal Teaching is Vygotskian.

Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) is central to understanding the rationale behind Reciprocal Teaching. ^[13]The ZPD represents the gap between what learners can accomplish independently and what they can achieve with guidance and support from more knowledgeable others, such as teachers or peers . Reciprocal Teaching operates within this zone by providing structured support and scaffolding to help students navigate challenging texts and develop deeper comprehension skills.

The iterative process of Reciprocal Teaching, where the teacher gradually reduces support as students gain proficiency, reflects Vygotsky's idea of scaffolding. Scaffolding involves providing temporary support and guidance to learners as they engage in tasks that are just beyond their current level of competence, with the goal of gradually transferring responsibility to the learners themselves . The assistance provided the learner is a good example of scaffolding in that both temporary and adjusted support is provided, according to the needs of the participants. The assistance is withdrawn when it is no longer needed. The sequence of teacher modeling, coaching, and then fading also provides an excellent example of the structure of a cognitive apprenticeship as outlined by Collins, Brown, and Newman (1989).^[14]