Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching involves modeling four comprehension activities: questioning, summarizing, predicting and clarifying.

Select a reading.

Think out loud, "What is the title?"

Think out loud—"What do I know about this subject?"

Think out loud—predict what the selection is going to be about.

Explain to the class the reasoning process you are using.

Explain what you are doing—that you are questioning, predicting, summarizing and clarifying.

The teacher then reads the first segment of the selection stopping at anything that might be unfamiliar and thinking aloud for the student how to figure it out. It may involve the teacher saying, “I don’t know this word, so I think I will skip it for now and finish reading the end of the sentence.”

“This doesn’t make sense to me, I‘d better go back and reread and see if I can make sense of what I am reading.”

Another strategy is to stop at an unknown word and ask students, "What should I do?" “How can I figure this out?”

Upon finishing the reading, ask a question, such as, “Why did it occur?

Let student answer.

Ask student to pose a question. Encourage another student to answer. Ask individual students to generate questions.

Next the teacher summarizes what he read, answering who, what, when, why and how.

Teacher should invite students to comment if anything was left out.

Then together with students, the teacher should look at the segment and ask, “Is there any thing here that is unclear in meaning?”

Then the teacher should pose predictions of the next segment of the reading.

Then the teacher should look at the next subheading and how it fits with what they have just learned.

Invite a student to be the teacher, doing what he teacher did on the next segment.

Continue to select students to pay “teacher” until selection is read.

Have students summarize reading as a whole.

Discuss with students the reasoning process they have used.

Follow the same process in its entirety at least one more time on another selection.

Make up reciprocal cards. Each card should be a different color. Laminate cards for durability.

Divide students into groups of fours. Distribute four different cards to each group.

Have students select one card. Divide selection into four segments or more.

Students will do one of two things.

	Either they do their job as assigned by the card within their own group or
	After the reading, all the predictors get together and make predictions, summarizers work together on a summary, clarifiers work together to explain any thing unclear, and questioners work together to develop questions.

If following the option where students of the same card gather together, then after working within their group they should return to their original group of four and disseminate their information.

Follow either pattern until selection is completed.

When the reading is completed, work as a whole class and discuss what learning has taken place and the reasoning processes the students used.

Reciprocal Cards

(Palinscar and Brown 1984)

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Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching involves modeling four comprehension activities: questioning, summarizing, predicting and clarifying.

Select a reading.

Think out loud, "What is the title?"

Think out loud—"What do I know about this subject?"

Think out loud—predict what the selection is going to be about.

Explain to the class the reasoning process you are using.

Explain what you are doing—that you are questioning, predicting, summarizing and clarifying.

“This doesn’t make sense to me, I‘d better go back and reread and see if I can make sense of what I am reading.”

Another strategy is to stop at an unknown word and ask students, "What should I do?" “How can I figure this out?”

Upon finishing the reading, ask a question, such as, “Why did it occur?

Let student answer.

Ask student to pose a question. Encourage another student to answer. Ask individual students to generate questions.

Next the teacher summarizes what he read, answering who, what, when, why and how.

Teacher should invite students to comment if anything was left out.

Then together with students, the teacher should look at the segment and ask, “Is there any thing here that is unclear in meaning?”

Then the teacher should pose predictions of the next segment of the reading.

Then the teacher should look at the next subheading and how it fits with what they have just learned.

Invite a student to be the teacher, doing what he teacher did on the next segment.

Continue to select students to pay “teacher” until selection is read.

Have students summarize reading as a whole.

Discuss with students the reasoning process they have used.

Follow the same process in its entirety at least one more time on another selection.

Make up reciprocal cards. Each card should be a different color. Laminate cards for durability.

Divide students into groups of fours. Distribute four different cards to each group.

Have students select one card. Divide selection into four segments or more.

Students will do one of two things.

Either they do their job as assigned by the card within their own group or

After the reading, all the predictors get together and make predictions, summarizers work together on a summary, clarifiers work together to explain any thing unclear, and questioners work together to develop questions.

If following the option where students of the same card gather together, then after working within their group they should return to their original group of four and disseminate their information.

Follow either pattern until selection is completed.

When the reading is completed, work as a whole class and discuss what learning has taken place and the reasoning processes the students used.

Reciprocal Cards

(Palinscar and Brown 1984)