Reciprocal teaching is a scaffolder, or supporter, a conversational process that involves four main strategies – prediction, questioning, clarification asking, summarizing.
In simple terms, repetitive teaching refers to the instructional activity in which students become teachers during the learning sessions of small groups. Model for teachers, and help students learn to lead group discussions using learning strategies.
Reciprocal instruction encourages students to think about their thinking process while reading and it helps students to remain engaged actively and check their understanding as they read and ultimately teaches students to ask questions while reading and helps to make the text understandable.
So let us discuss the 04 main reciprocal teaching strategies, what we call – The 04 Building Blocks:
1. Predicting
There are two parts to “predicting” a text. The first comprises the predicting, as what is going to happen overall in a reading; the next involves predicting what is going to happen in a coming section.
Part 1 — Predict what will happen to the rest of the text using a title, picture (such as cover art), or a short summary. Then use those clues to make your predictions about the whole piece.
Part 2 — Scroll to a piece of text that you have been assigned to read, and select specific words, sentences, or pictures. From that point of view, make a quick prediction of what will happen in the next text.
Making predictable evidence will better connect readers to the text – enabling them to become more involved in the learning process. When students become involved in learning, they focus more, which will help them to understand what is going on around them.
2. Questioning
You also want students to ask why certain things are important within learning. However, asking questions can be difficult and many students do not know where to start. An easy way to ask:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why?
- How?
Asking, discussing, and answering questions gets students involved with the reading and ensures they’re paying attention to important details.
3. Clarifying
Clarifying is used to ensure that students continue to understand what they are learning throughout the process. This can be as simple as identifying unfamiliar words in a complex object such as explaining key concepts in a particular passage.
Clarifying is a two-step process where students:
- Identify that they are confused by an idea or word
- Take steps to resolve the confusion and better understand the text
Give students a good idea of what it feels like to misunderstand a passage so they can identify this problem themselves.
Show students how to clarify different questions by saying things like, “This sentence didn’t make sense to me, so I reread the passage to understand it better”.
4. Summarizing
The summary includes allowing the reading to reach the most important points in both written and oral form. Encourage learners to stop reading aloud in order to make concise notes in the text. Summarizing each part of the study is like paving the way for students to see what parts they understand. During group work, students should be able to talk briefly with their classmates.
At the end of the reading, students can combine their short summaries to make the whole view complete.
Ask questions throughout the reading process that helps comprehension of the important points.
Ask students questions like:
- What was this part about?
- What happened at the beginning, middle or end?
- What are the most important ideas from this paragraph, section, or reading?
Summarizing is a key contributor to improving reading comprehension.