Reciprocal Teaching: Session 1

1
Reciprocal Teaching Session 1
2
Twilight Course Overview

• Session 1 An Introduction to Reciprocal Teaching
• Introduction to the 4 key strategies used in RT
  (predicting questioning clarifying
  summarising)
• Session 2 Reciprocal Teaching cont..
• Importance of metacognitive skills.
• Importance of providing cognitive challenge
• Importance of collaboration
• More approaches to improving comprehension
• Session 3 Developing Questioning Skills
• Session 4 Developing Predicting, clarifying and
  summarising A toolkit
• Further applications of RT methodology
• Session 5 Recall session
• Opportunities to share good practice and
  resources and to reflect on the use of the
  approach with pupils
• 17.5 CPD hours
• 7 ½ contact hours

3
Aims of Session 1

• Provide an overview of Reciprocal Teaching
• Introduction to the 4 key strategies
• Explain how the strategies are integrated into a
  Reciprocal Teaching lesson
• Foster enough confidence for you to go away and
  give it a go.

4
Workshop 1 Teaching Comprehension

• What / how do you teach comprehension?
• To what effect?
• Identify potential barriers?

5
The Teaching of Comprehension The Findings of
Hall et al (1999)

• Hall et al found that, in a study of 12
  classrooms, lessons
• Were characterised by the use of worksheets /
  workbooks
• Contained limited reference to the specific
  strategies used in comprehending text
• Were dictated by teachers
• Contained limited teacher / pupil interaction
• Were low in motivational demands
• Offered little opportunity for learners to
  reflect on their learning
• Provided questions which were literal in nature
• Emphasised outcome rather than process
• Offered little in terms of cognitive and
  metacognitive demands

6
What is Reciprocal Teaching?

• RT is a framework for teaching the skills
  necessary for good comprehension
• It is dialogue based.
• Initially, the teacher acts as the facilitator -
  modelling the use of 4 key strategies to the
  pupils
• Gradually, with teacher support, pupils
  confidence and competency will increase and adult
  input will decrease
• The eventual aim is that the pupils will be able
  to work independently

7
The 4 Strategies

• Competent readers sub-consciously use a number of
  strategies to monitor and aid comprehension
• RT works by making these strategies explicit to
  learners.
• Predicting
• Questioning
• Clarifying
• Summarising

8
Why?

• Discuss given strategy with your group and try to
  say why it is an important strategy for
  developing comprehension.
• Choose an expert from your group who will take
  your views to another group.

9
Why Predicting?

• Gives the reader a purpose to read on in order to
  check out their predictions
• Encourages pupils to utilise knowledge previously
  acquired in reading the text (when making
  predictions part way through the story)
• Provides a mechanism for monitoring comprehension
  (i.e. were my predictions correct, and if not why
  not)

10
Why Questioning?

• Allows readers to pick out the main points in the
  text
• Introduces children to different kinds of
  questions, which in turn should help them with
  answers.

11
Why Clarifying?

• Trains pupils to monitor their comprehension
  (rather than just reading blindly)
• Permits children to admit to not understanding a
  word.
• Develops skills so that pupils can decipher the
  meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases

12
Why Summarising?

• This is the ultimate test of whether a pupil has
  fully understood the passage an extremely
  difficult skill to master

13
Professor P. Brain and the Magic Potion
Author Mary Mullen Illustrated by Joe Jenkins
14
Workshop 2

• Task
• Generate predictions about this story. Make
  predictions about the character(s), the genre,
  the plot, the setting.
• Highlight evidence used to make the predictions
• Discuss in pairs / small groups

15
Workshop 4 Clarifying

• Read passage
• Which words / phrases might pupils flag up as
  unfamiliar?
• What strategies do we use, as adults, to figure
  out the meanings of unfamiliar words / phrases?

16
What does a classic RT lesson look like?

• Small group of children
• One pupil acts as a teacher. They lead the
  group through a structured dialogue discussing
  each of the 4 strategies outlined in turn
• Step 1 Teacher begins by asking group members
  to make predictions about what they are about to
  read
• Step 2 Teacher reads a small section of text
  to the group or pupils read the section on their
  own
• Step 3 Teacher facilitates the generation of
  questions
• Step 4 Group are asked by the teacher to list
  unfamiliar words or phrases or to outline
  sections of the text that they are unsure of.
  Group work together to clarify the meanings of
  the identified words and phrases
• Step 5 Teacher asks a pupil / pupils to
  summarise the piece of text that has just been
  read
• Step 6 The cycle begins again. Pupils are
  asked, by the teacher, to make predictions
  about the next section of text before going on to
  read it.

17
What can Reciprocal Teaching offer teachers?

• A structure for teaching the skills required for
  enhanced comprehension
• Easy to resource
• Can be used across the curriculum
• Can be used for whole class lessons, group
  activities or for individual work
• Effective for pupils of almost all abilities
  including those of lower to average ability
• A mechanism for assessing comprehension skills
  and identifying areas for development
• HMIe hold it up as an example of good practice
• RT is not, however, a quick fix

18
What can RT offer learners?

• Most pupils enjoy RT
• Opportunities to develop their comprehension
  skills
• Comprehension not associated with having to write
  a million sentences
• Opportunities for peer and adult support to
  improve skills
• Opportunities to be active learners

19
Introducing RT

• Method 1 Straight in introduce all strategies
  in one go. Use the approach in day to day
  teaching (whole class or at reading group time)
  with you, as teacher, acting as a model. Slowly
  hand over responsibility to the pupils
• Method 2 Systematically teach each strategy
  one-by-one and then pull the strategies together
• Method 3 - A combination of 1 2! Introduce all
  the strategies together and then, through the use
  of careful assessment, use standalone lessons to
  build on pupils skills.

20
Over the next couple of weeks

• Introduce the idea of Reciprocal Teaching to
  pupils with the class or, if you prefer, with one
  group that youll work with over a number of
  weeks
• Discuss all the strategies each time.
• When modelling share your thought processes
• - give praise and immediate feedback
• Encourage pupils to use the language of RT
  explicitly
• Be interactive! Involve pupils as much as
  possible.
• Record findings in your log book

21
Have I got the time?

• No .. if you use it as an add-on to an
  already crowded curriculum!
• Yes . if you use it as part of your on-going
  comprehension teaching or as part of your group
  reading programme