Reciprocal Teaching | Pros & Cons

In small group reading sessions, reciprocal teaching refers to an educational practice in which students take on the role of an instructor.

Teachers model and then teach students how to use four techniques to lead group discussions: summarising, question generation, clarifying, and forecasting.

After learning the techniques, students take turns acting as teachers and leading a discussion about what they have learned.

Reasons to use Reciprocal Training

During reading, it helps students to reflect on their own thinking processes.

It teaches students to be active participants in their learning and to keep track of their understanding while they read.

It encourages students to ask questions while they read and makes the text more understandable.

What is reciprocal instruction and how can it be used?

Before your students can use Reciprocal Teaching effectively, they must first be taught and given time to practice the four techniques that are used in reciprocal teaching (summarizing, questioning, predicting, and clarifying).

One way to train students for reciprocal teaching is to: (from Donna Dyer of the North West Regional Education Service Agency in North Carolina)

1. Students should be placed in four-person groups.

2. Distribute one note card to each group member, describing their specific role:

• Summarizer
• Questioner
• Clarifier
• Predictor

3. Students should read a few paragraphs from the assigned text.

Encourage them to use note-taking techniques like selective underlining or sticky notes to better prepare for their part in the discussion.

4. The Summarizer will highlight the key ideas up to this point in the reading at the specified stopping point.

5. The Questioner will then ask you questions about your choice:

• Bits that are unclear 
• Material that is perplexing 
• Connections to previously learned concepts

6. The Clarifier will go through the sections that are unclear and try to answer the questions that were just asked.

7. The Predictor can make predictions about what the author will say next to the community or, if it is a literary pick, it can indicate what will happen next in the plot.

8. After that, the positions in the community turn to the right, and the next selection is read.

Students go through the process again, this time in their new positions. This process is replicated until the list has been read in its entirety.

9. The teacher’s job is to direct and nurture the student’s ability to effectively use the four techniques within the small group during the process.

As students gain experience, the teacher’s job becomes less important.

Conclusion

Reciprocal instruction is most successful when it takes place in the sense of a small-group joint inquiry led by an instructor or reading tutor.

This reading technique can be used during reading by an individual, with small groups, or the whole class.

This will help the kids to uplift their skills by empowering the students to collaboratively understand the given text. 

Further, students become active participants in the lesson as a result of this.

This is a useful technique for increasing classroom positivity and fostering a child’s emotional growth and social skills at a young age.