About me

Monday, June 15, 2015

Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Chapter 3



















Welcome back!  This week we jump into chapter three.  Please link up your post or leave a comment about the chapter. Don't forget to visit Sarah at  Kovescence of the Mind for her thoughts on this chapter.

The third chapter begins with examples of reciprocal teaching whole group lessons.  There are advantages and disadvantages to whole group instruction.  It is not best for differentiation, but it provides opportunities for all levels of students to work on the same text. In addition, it is a good way for students to begin to learn the how to use the strategies. The disadvantages of this lesson model is that some students may not be as engaged or to shy to participate in this type of setting.

It is possible to conduct a guided reading group in the middle of a whole group lesson.  After conducting a whole group lesson, you can break students into pairs to use strategies on the next few pages of the text you are reading.  This is the time in which you can meet with a small group.
The group will meet as a whole again and continue discussing.  The author recommends that whole class lessons be taught to reinforce the strategies. However, she warns against overusing whole group lessons.

Goals of Whole Class instruction

 teach reciprocal teaching vocabulary 
 to have more chances to scaffold reciprocal teaching lessons
 teach students in any level strategies to improve comprehension of grade level text
 to use reciprocal teaching to have discussions about text 
 to practice routines and procedures 



Fab Four Read-Aloud from Reciprocal Teaching at Work by Lori Oczkus from International Literacy Assoc on Vimeo.

To be successful in a whole class lesson, teacher must model, students must participate in guided group practice and think about the strategies they used. The author expresses her practice of alternating between pair discussions and whole group discussions. She monitors the discussions and provides a poster, bookmark or other supports to help students internalize learning.  Remember, these resources are already provided in the book.


Think alouds are crucial to the successful reciprocal teaching lesson.  These must be practiced by both teacher and students. They must be done repeatedly so students come to master these strategies.

Students are asked to engage in metacognition as they discuss the strategies that were most helpful for them during each session. 

The use of cooperative learning in reciprocal teaching is essential as students are asked to discuss the strategies with one another in various grouping for different texts.

The author suggest whole group lessons are a good time to assess student use of the strategies. She includes a rubric in the book for this purpose. You can listen in to small group discussions or observe what students say during whole group discussions. She says you can have students record on the "Literature Discussion Sheet for Reciprocal Teaching." (This is another resource provided in the book.)
Teacher can mention those who have used strategies well and discuss this with the class. Finally, the teacher could lead a class discussion on the steps for each strategy and record these on an anchor chart.

The last part of the chapter includes four lessons to reinforce strategies and includes resources for these.

No comments:

Post a Comment