Reciprocal Teaching

This strategy will help students to understand more difficult text. It is best done in the setting of a small group 2-5 kids. First the students read through the passage either on their own or as a group. Then the teacher leads a discussion with the following components.

1. Summarize--The teacher may need to use prompts to help the students to summarize the passage.

Prompts could include:

• What was the big idea in this paragraph?
• What is the topic sentence?
• What idea do all the details point to?
• How is the passage organized? (Cause/effect, comparison, probem/solution sequential, etc)
• Do you think this was th introduction to the topic, the body, or the summary of the passage?

After the students become better at this they can develop the questions for each other in the discussion. Modeling by the teacher is important for the first few times, however.

2. Question--The students will question each other during this part, but intially the teacher will demonstrate the questioning process.

• How does this passage connect to what I know?
• Does this selection make sense iwth what I know?
• How does this selection relate to my predictions?

3. Clarify--In this part of reciprocal teaching, the students will try to discover the meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary or concepts that were not understood.

• I don't understand these words: _______
• Does this information fit with my experience?
• I didn't understand this part: _________
• I need to know more about: _________
• I don't understand how these ideas are connected: __________

4. Predict--Use this to ask what they students think with come next in the text.

• I predict:_____