“We Can Do It, Too!”
Reciprocal Teaching is a reading strategy that teaches students to work in small groups to develop comprehension and improve student dialogue. Originally designed with J4 students, reciprocal teaching has supported students in using the four essential skills for good reading: predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarising.
“Good readers” should be able to use what they already know to guess what is going to happen next (predict), read between the lines (question), infer knowledge about the text (clarify) and make connections (summarise). At first, using these strategies together was a challenge for young readers, but with scaffolded practise and support from the teacher, students have developed their reading skills.
To implement reciprocal teaching, the teacher begins with whole class instruction to model how to effectively use the four strategies together. Cue cards with pictures and scripts help students in guided group discussion. Each student has a different role and they help each other find the meaning from the text. As time goes on, students become more familiar with the skills and take control over strategy use, as they develop as independent learners.
Overall, our students are really enthusiastic about reciprocal teaching. The LETs and NETs have enjoyed observing the progress made in the Fun English lessons. Next year, we hope to continue supporting the learning process across all levels through Reciprocal Teaching.
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