I just read an article entitled “When Should Kids Be Able to Read?” at The Washington Post Answer Sheet.  It discusses our country’s obsession with getting kids reading earlier and earlier and how this trend contradicts research that shows some kids just need more time to learn how to read.  It also points out that we are doing a disservice to boys who, as a population, are at a disadvantage by the push to get kids reading earlier.  I encourage you to read the article by clicking on the above link. 

Many people weighed in with their responses, so you may also want to read the comments.  One comment was posted by Stephen Krashen, the author of The Power of Reading. In his book Krashen cites overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of FVR—free voluntary reading.  It is a must-read!  In his posted comment he offers to send readers a copy of an article that provides strong evidence that reading can be improved at any age.  I e-mailed him for a copy and within an hour he had sent it.  I encourage you to get a copy for yourself.  You can e-mail him at skrashen@yahoo.com and request this article:  Krashen, S. and McQuillan, J. 2007. Late intervention. Educational Leadership 65 (2): 68-73.

I thought it was encouraging to read how effective late intervention can be for our struggling readers.

During the past couple of weeks I have not posted any new blog entries.  What I have been doing instead is posting a series of articles on a reading comprehension technique called reciprocal teaching.  For those who may not be familiar with this technique, reciprocal teaching is a research-based instructional model that was developed in 1984 by Annemarie Palinscar and Ann L. Brown. It is a method that utilizes four comprehension strategies—predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing—to help students construct meaning from text. The focus of reciprocal teaching is on the interactive dialogue between students. It is reciprocal in nature because students in a reciprocal teaching group take turns leading the discussion and guiding the group through the four strategies.

I noticed in the Oct./Nov. Reading Today newspaper that Lori Oczkus has published a new edition of Reciprocal Teaching at Work K-12.  I have also been studying the Common Core Literacy Standards that have been adopted by 38 states so far. A few things stand out to me as I look through the standards:  1) Students are going to be asked to read with deeper comprehension. 2) They will be asked to support their thinking with evidence from the text. 3) They will be required to spend increasingly more time on expository reading and writing.  I realized that the reciprocal teaching model could be very helpful in leading students into deeper comprehension of expository text.  Because it is conducted in small groups, it also has practical applications for RTI (Response to Intervention).  In fact, it was originally developed as an intervention technique for struggling middle school students.

With all of that in mind, I decided to post some information and resources to help interested teachers get started with reciprocal teaching.  You can find all of this information on the Comprehension Strategies page of my website.  You may want to start by viewing these brief but excellent video clips of reciprocal teaching in action:

• Part 1 
• Part 2

Below are links to free downloadable reproducibles and resources that will help you implement reciprocal teaching in your classroom:

• Reciprocal Teaching Bookmarks
• Reciprocal Teaching Worksheet
• Question Prompts
• Predict-Confirm-Adjust Chart
• Spin a Question Board:  Copy onto cardstock and attach a spinner.
• Reciprocal Teaching Prompt Cards:  Reproduce, cut, and place cards on a looseleaf ring.  Provide one set for each group of students.  The student who is leading the lesson at the time works through the prompt cards to help guide the discussion.  These should be used in the early stages only.  Once students are comfortable leading the lesson, the prompt cards are no longer needed.
• Reciprocal Teaching Teacher Assessment Form
• Reciprocal Teaching Self-Evaluation
• Reciprocal Teaching Posters:  These can be enlarged to 11 x 17 posters.

Prediction

1.  Observe students’ use of strategies. Do they:

• Preview the cover, illustrations, table of contents, headings before reading?
• Stop to predict during reading?
• Base their predictions on background knowledge and/or clues from the text and illustrations?
• Make logical predictions?
• Use the language of predictions? (See sentence stems under prediction activities.

2.  Watch for students who are having trouble providing evidence for their predictions or who make predictions that don’t make sense.

3.  Review how good readers use the cover, illustrations, text features, and background knowledge to make predictions.

Questioning

1.  Observe students’ use of strategies. Do they:

• Ask questions before, during, and after reading?
• Ask questions based on the text?
• Ask main idea, detail, and inference questions?
• Use the question words who, what, where, when, why, what if, how?

2.  Watch for students who ask only detail-oriented questions or are having trouble formulating main idea and inference questions.

3.  Model, model, model!

4.  Work with struggling readers in a small guided reading group to model and practice questioning.

Clarifying

1.  Observe students’ use of strategies. Do they:

• Identify words and ideas that are unclear or unfamiliar?
• Use a variety of fix-up strategies when comprehension breaks down?
• Express which strategy or strategies helped them solve a word or clarify an idea? (I didn’t understand that part, so I…)

2.  Watch for students who:

• Tend to rely on one strategy too much (i.e., “sounding out” when another strategy would be more helpful).
• Skim over trouble spots without taking time to clarify.
• Clarify words but struggle with clarifying ideas.
• Skip clarifying altogether because they think they have nothing to clarify.

3.  If a student is reluctant to identify a word or idea to clarify, encourage him to point out something that might be troubling for a younger reader.

4.  Review how good readers use a variety of strategies to repair comprehension(see “fix-up strategies” in the clarifying section).

5.  Work with struggling readers in a small guided reading group to model and practice using a variety of fix-up strategies.

Summarizing

1.  Observe students’ use of strategies. Do they:

• Give a clear, concise summary in their own words?
• Reread to remember main ideas?
• Summarize the text in sequential order for narrative text and logical order for expository text?
• Leave out details that aren’t important? Tell only the most important ideas?
• Use the language of summarizing? (See sentence stems in the summarizing section).

2.  Watch for students who:

• Cannot remember what they have read.
• Have difficulty stating just the main ideas.
• Just restate the text without condensing it into their own words.
• Include unimportant details.
• Have difficulty summarizing in sequential or logical order.

3.  Work with struggling readers in a small guided reading group to model and practice summarizing.

4.  Remind students that it is okay to look back in the text to help them summarize.

5.  If students are having trouble summarizing independently, have them practice group summaries. After having each group present their summaries to the class,have the class vote on the best summary.

6.  Have struggling students practice constructing summaries using slightly below grade level text.

The following professional books and websites provide additional valuable information about reciprocal teaching and practical strategies for implementing it.

Professional Books:

Websites:

• Reciprocal Teaching Questions and Answers
• Reciprocal Teaching: A Reading Strategy
• Reading Rockets
• North Central Regional Educational Lab
• Reciprocal Teaching Video Demonstration Part 1 
• Reciprocal Teaching Video Demonstration Part 2
• Lori Oczkus Models Reciprocal Teaching

During the clarifying step of reciprocal teaching, students are asked to monitor their own comprehension of a passage, identify and explain difficult words and ideas, and use a variety of strategies to clear up confusion. Most students find it easier to identify words that they cannot decode or do not understand than to identify unclear ideas. Students must be taught to monitor their own comprehension by constantly asking themselves, “Does this make sense?” “Do I understand what I am reading?” It is our job to help students notice more as they read—to help them pay attention to story structure, text features, headings, etc. The clarification strategy helps students realize that they should always be monitoring their reading for meaning.

Red Flags

It is important to teach readers how to know when they are stuck on a word or idea. Cris Tovani teaches her students to recognize the following signals when comprehension is breaking down.

1. The voice inside the reader’s head isn’t interacting with the text.
2. The camera inside the reader’s head shuts off.
3. The reader’s mind begins to wander.
4. The reader can’t remember what has been read.
5. Clarifying questions asked by the reader are not answered.
6. The reader re-encounters a character and has no recollection when that character was introduced.

Source: I Read It, But I Don’t Get It by Cris Tovani, Stenhouse, 2000.

Fix-Up Strategies

Once students are taught to recognize when comprehension is breaking down, they need to learn how to repair comprehension problems. It is important for students to realize that all readers, even proficient ones, struggle with words and ideas. The difference is that proficient readers use a variety of strategies or fix-up tools to help them clarify. With explicit instruction, struggling readers can be equipped with these same tools. Not all strategies will work all the time, so it is important for readers to have a repertoire to pull from. Below are some strategies used by good readers:

Context Clues: It has been estimated that the average upper elementary age student encounters approximately 3000 new words each year. Since only 300-500 are taught through direct vocabulary instruction, students need to be taught additional strategies for learning new vocabulary independently. Using context clues is a beneficial way for students to acquire new vocabulary through independent reading, but many students need to be explicitly taught this skill. Modeling through think-alouds is an effective way to teach students how to derive meaning through context clues.

Adjust Reading Rate: Many struggling readers think that good readers read everything quickly. This is a misconception that must be cleared up. Proficient readers adjust their reading rates constantly—they speed up and even skim easy, boring, or unimportant parts and slow down to concentrate on difficult or confusing parts. They select the reading rate that meets the needs of the task at hand.

Substitute Another Word: Context clues help bring meaning to many unfamiliar words, but at times even this strategy fails. Substituting another word that makes sense in the sentence can often help a reader sustain meaning even if s/he cannot figure out the exact pronunciation or meaning of a particular word.

Sound It Out: Some struggling readers have a tendency to guess at words using only the beginning consonant. They need to be encouraged to look at the entire word, syllable by syllable if needed, and check to see if the sounds they pronounced match the letters in the word.

Look for Meaning: When a passage doesn’t make sense, when students aren’t able to construct meaning from the text, they aren’t really reading. They need to be encouraged to stop as soon as comprehension breaks down, and use one or more strategies.

Ask Someone: During reciprocal teaching, students are encouraged to ask other groups members for help in clarifying a word or idea.

Look for Word Chunks: Many struggling readers have a tendency to skim over words that at first glance appear too big or complicated. By teaching students to look for chunks in words, including prefixes, suffixes, and smaller words they recognize, even multi-syllabic words can be easily decoded.

Visualize: Creating mental images can help a reader more fully interact with and understand a text. For more on visualizing, see pp. 35-36.

Use Schema (Background Knowledge): Encourage students to stop and think about what they already know about a concept or text. Relating new information to existing knowledge greatly increases comprehension.

Use Sticky Notes: Sometimes it’s not practical to stop reading to look up a word in the dictionary or even ask someone. Putting a sticky note on a page containing a confusing word or idea and returning to it later often helps students maintain their focus during reading and reminds them to return to the text for clarification later.

Read on: Sometimes when comprehension begins to break down, the best thing to do is to continue to read on. If reading on does not help, the reader must not continue to read—he must find another fix-up strategy.

Reread: Often, simply rereading a text will clear up confusion. Point out to students that this doesn’t always mean rereading everything. Sometimes rereading a couple of sentences or a paragraph is sufficient. Even skimming what has just been read can be helpful.

Think-Alouds

A powerful way to teach clarifying and make metacognitive processes explicit to students is through teacher think-alouds. Try using a short piece of text such as a nursery rhyme to model the decoding of a confusing word. Demonstrate how to use the fix-up strategies described above. Be sure to emphasize that the purpose in using these strategies is to construct meaning from the text.

Providing Prompts

As students are learning to monitor their understanding, it is often helpful to respond to their attempts with prompts to jump-start their problem solving processes.

• Does that look right?
• Where’s the tricky part of the word?
• Why did you stop?
• I like the way you worked on that word.
• I like the way you figured that out.
• You almost got that. See if you can find what is wrong.
• You’ve got the first part of the word right. Try that again.
• Try it another way.
• Check the middle of the word.
• Does that make sense?
• Does that look right?
• Does that sound right?
• Does that look like another word you know?
• Look at the prefix, suffix.
• Cover up the end of the word.
• What strategy can you try?
• What else can you try?
• Start from the beginning and read it again.
• Can you think of a word that would make sense?

Read-Cover-Remember-Retell

Many struggling readers continue to plow through a text even when they don’t understand what they are reading. This partner activity forces students to slow down their reading process and focus on the meaning of the text. Students are taught to:

READ only as much as their hand can cover.

COVER up the part of the story they just read.

REMEMBER to think about what they just read.

RETELL what they just read to a partner.

Source: Revisit, Reflect, Retell by Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 1999.

Guess the Covered Word

This is an activity that requires students to use several strategies to cross-check to decode unknown words in a text. On an overhead transparency display several sentences or a paragraph. Using sticky notes, cover several key words in the text. Have students read the first sentence, saying “blank” for the covered word. Make a class list of possible words that could fit in the blank. Students will be relying only on word length and meaning during this step. Next, uncover the beginning consonant or consonant cluster (everything up to the first vowel). Have students revise their guesses. Now students will be cross-checking using word length, meaning, and beginning phonemes.

Source: Month-by-Month Phonics by Patricia Cunningham and Dorothy P. Hall, Carson-Dellosa Publishing Company, Inc., 1998.

Sticky Notes

Review strategies used by good readers to clarify words and ideas. Give students two sticky notes of different colors—one for clarifying a word and the other for an idea. Have students silently read a selection. After they have read the text, ask them to go back and find one word and one idea that they had to clarify or that they still need to clarify and write them on the respective sticky notes. Have students share their sticky notes and strategies they used for clarifying.

Research has found that proficient readers ask questions before, during, and after reading. Developing readers do not automatically use this strategy, so it is one that must be explicitly taught. In a reciprocal teaching lesson students are taught to formulate main idea, detail-oriented, and inference questions after each section they read. Because students know that they will be asked to formulate these questions, they read with greater awareness. Even students who have a tendency to skim over difficult spots will attend to their reading more closely, thereby increasing their comprehension. At first students tend to focus on lower level detail-oriented questions. With practice, however, they learn to formulate main idea and higher level inference questions as well.

Picture This

This activity is a great way to introduce students to the questioning strategy. Display a transparency of a picture from a high-interest picture book. Guide students in formulating questions about the picture. Record questions on chart paper. Read aloud or have students read the related text. Have students answer the previously generated questions.  Source: A Practical Guide to Reciprocal Teaching by Shira Lubliner, Wright Group/McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Spin a Question

 This is a fun way to introduce questioning during small group instruction. Reproduce the spinner below on cardstock and laminate. Attach a paper clip spinner. After reading a section of text, have a student spin the spinner, formulate a question using that question word, and select a classmate to answer the question. This can also be used as a partner activity.

Question Starters

Introduce students to the language of questioning. Most students are familiar with the question words who, what, where, when, why, and how. Once these are mastered, try extending these to question phrases to help students begin to formulate higher level questions. Examples include:

• What caused…?
• What are the characteristics of…?
• What if…?
• What does the author mean when…?
• Would you agree that…?
• Would it be better if…?

Paired Questioning

Have students work in pairs to read a selection of text. Students read silently, stopping at predetermined spots. After reading each section, one student asks a question and the partner attempts to answer. They reverse roles and continue this process until the selection is finished.  Source: Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3-8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, IRA, 2002.

Main Idea Questions

Asking main idea questions requires students to process and synthesize information very quickly as they read. While struggling readers find this skill difficult, spending time explicitly teaching it can greatly increase reading comprehension. The best way to teach students to generate main idea questions is through a guided lesson. Begin with teacher modeling and gradually ask students to practice formulating their own main idea questions. Struggling readers may require a great deal of practice before reaching independence with this skill. Be sure to provide coaching and corrective feedback.

Hot Seat

This activity helps students formulate inferential questions. As preparation for this activity, explain to students the difference between questions that have obvious, on-the-surface answers and ones that have under-the-surface answers or require them to make an inference. Demonstrate by using a student volunteer. Ask questions about the student’s eye color, hair color, etc.—questions that have obvious answers. Then ask questions that require an inference, such as how the student is feeling, why she is smiling, etc.

To play Hot Seat, one student is selected to play the role of a main character in a text and is sent out of the room. The rest of the class generates a list of questions to ask the character. The character returns to the room and is seated on a “hot seat.” Students take turns asking the character questions. The student on the hot seat attempts to answer the questions from the character’s point of view. A discussion session follows. Variation: Select several students to play the role of the same character. Bring in one character at a time to sit on the hot seat. Compare and contrast the different characters’ answers.  Source: A Practical Guide to Reciprocal Teaching by Shira Lubliner, Wright Group/McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Wonder Questions

This activity works well with nonfiction text. Have students skim through nonfiction text and write an “I wonder” question for each page of a picture book or each section of a textbook or article. After writing questions, students go back and read the text to find answers. This is a great activity to use with “the rest of the class” when you are working with a small guided reading group.  Source: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Lori Oczkus, IRA, 2003.

Questioning With the Table of Contents

This is similar to “Predicting With the Table of Contents” in the prediction activities post. Instead of generating predictions, they formulate questions about the chapter based on the titles in the table of contents. Students then read the text to answer the questions.  Source: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Lori Oczkus, IRA, 2003.

Summarizing is a complex strategy that requires students to construct concise descriptions of the main points or events of a text. It is helpful to teach summarizing after questioning because they are closely related skills.  When summarizing narrative text, students should use story structure (characters, setting, problem, events, resolution) to help recount the story in order. When summarizing expository text, students need to determine the most important ideas and arrange them in a logical order. Students need to be taught that summarizing is an in-the-head strategy that proficient readers use to sustain meaning throughout their reading of a text.

The following are some excellent video lessons which demonstrate effective teaching of summarization skills:

• Introduction to Summarizing
• Using Key Words to Summarize
• Using Interactive Writing to Teach Summary Writing
• Checking for Understanding 
• Conferring to Assess Summaries

Below are some additional activities to help students practice their summarization skills:

Sentence Stems

It is often helpful to prompt students using the language of summarizing. Sentence stems include the following:

• First…
• Next…
• Then
• After that…
• Finally…
• The story takes place…
• The main characters are…
• A problem occurs when…
• I learned that…
• The most important ideas in this text are…
• This part was about…

Model Rereading

Students often need to be reminded that it is not cheating to go back and look over what they have just read to help them summarize or locate answers. Using the text is an important resource that should not be overlooked. The best way to reinforce use of this important strategy is to model it frequently through think-alouds.

Shrink-Wrap Summaries

Read aloud a simple text such as a fairy tale or nursery rhyme. Guide students to generate a list of the main points in the text. Record the list on chart paper or overhead. Help students identify a main idea sentence and then a sequenced list of events. Record and reread the summary. To “shrink-wrap”, cross out unnecessary or repetitive details or sentences. Continue this process until the summary is as concise as possible. Discuss reasons for including or rejecting the sentences in the summary. After this has been modeled during whole group lessons, release responsibility to students by having them complete the activity with partners. Have each student write a summary and then pair students to “shrink-wrap” each others’ summaries.  Source: A Practical Guide to Reciprocal Teaching by Shira Lubliner, Wright Group/McGraw-Hill, 2001.

25-Word Summary

Give pairs of students a half sheet of transparency paper. Have the pairs work together to construct a summary of a selection in 25 words or less and write it on the transparency. Give students the opportunity to share summaries on the overhead. Compare and contrast summaries.

Book Chats

This activity can be used as an alternative to book reports. It allows students to “advertise” a favorite book for their classmates. Part of the book chat requires students to summarize the book. For more on book chats, see Student-Led Book Chats.

Thumbnail Sketch

Students review a text and summarize the main points using five sentences or less. Then they team up with a partner or small group to compare summaries. They work together to come up with a group “thumbnail sketch” that encompasses the points that all group members deemed important, again using five sentences or less.  Source: Revisit, Reflect, Retell by Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 1999.

The Important Book

Read aloud The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. Discuss the way the author uses each page to summarize a concept using the format of main idea-details-main idea. Have students write their own important books summarizing a concept, unit of study, reading selection, a character, etc. Have them write one sentence on each page and illustrate the pages.

Pattern:

The most important thing about _____ is _____.
It ________. It ________. It ________.
But the most important thing about ____ is ____.

Sample:

The most important thing about air is that it keeps us alive.
It is a gas.
It is invisible.
It contains oxygen and carbon dioxide.
But the most important thing about air is that it keeps us alive.

Now I Know Poem

This activity can be used at the end of a unit of study or after reading an expository text to help students synthesize and summarize information they learned.

Pattern:

Now I know
that ________,
that ________,
that _______.

I still want to know
why ________

I’m glad I learned
that ________
because ________.

Sample poem:

Now I know
that hardened lava is from a volcano,
that Hawaii is a volcano,
that earthquakes can kill people.

I still want to know
when the big earthquake will
come because I want to be ready.

I’m glad I learned
that volcanoes are under water
because I can be more alert.

Reprinted with permission from Linda Ryan, Institute for Educational Development, 1996.

Narrative Pyramid

This activity helps students summarize narrative text and provides a template for summary writing. After reading narrative text, students complete the following:

Line 1: Character’s name
Line 2: Two words describing the character
Line 3: Three words describing the setting
Line 4: Four words stating the problem
Line 5: Five words describing one event
Line 6: Six words describing another event
Line 7: Seven words describing a third event
Line 8: Eight words describing the solution to the problem

Source: Guided Comprehension in Action: Lessons for Grades 3-8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, IRA, 2002.

Bio-Poem

This is a fun way to summarize a character’s life or personality traits. Have students select a character from a fictional book or a famous person from a biography and complete the bio-poem planning sheet. 

Partner Page Summary

Students work in pairs and take turns reading a short piece of text. One partner places a blank overhead transparency over the text, underlines several key words, and then gives a verbal summary using those words. Then the student quickly erases the transparency and exchanges roles with his partner who repeats this process.  Source: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Lori Oczkus, IRA, 2003.

Comic Strip Summaries

Have students fold a blank piece of paper into 4, 6, or 8 sections. Instruct them to retell a story or article by drawing a main event or idea in each box and writing a sentence to accompany each picture. Share in small groups.  Source: Guided Comprehension in Action: Lessons for Grades 3-8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, IRA, 2002.

Prediction is an important good reader strategy because it helps students activate their schema (background knowledge). They use their knowledge of the world, story elements, and text features to make an informed guess about what they think will happen next or what they think they will learn. This helps readers set a purpose for reading. It is important to teach students that their predictions should be based on evidence from the text or other background knowledge. Students also need to realize that prediction is not something that is done only prior to reading a text–good readers confirm or adjust their predictions as they read and continue to make new predictions throughout their reading.

Sentence Stems
To help students begin to internalize the language of strategy use, it is often helpful to give them sentence stems to stimulate their thinking. The following sentence stems can be used to spark students’ ideas during reciprocal teaching dialogue and written responses to literature.

• I think…
• I wonder…
• I bet…
• I imagine…
• I suppose…
• I predict…

Word Prediction
Before reading, have students generate a list of words that they predict will be found in the text. During reading, stop periodically to have students make note of words that have appeared in the text and give them an opportunity to add more word predictions to the list.
Source: Revisit, Reflect, Retell by Linda Hoyt, Heinemann, 1999.

Prediction Stroll Line
Have students preview a text and write down several predictions with clues from the text. Divide class into two lines so that each student is facing a partner. Partners share their predictions and clues with each other. Signal one line of students to stroll down to share predictions with the next partner. Repeat several times. Gather students together to debrief. Discuss and list several predictions on chart paper. Return to the chart paper to confirm or adjust predictions after reading.

Adapted from: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Lori Oczkus, IRA, 2003.

Story Impressions
This activity is useful with narrative text. On chart paper or overhead display a list of 7-10 words that appear in a story. Choose words that relate to the characters, setting, problem, events, and solution of the story. List the words in a column in the order they appear in the story. Have students work in small groups to construct a story using all of the listed words in order. Share each group’s story. Have students read the original story and then compare and contrast their stories with the original.  
Source: Guided Comprehension: A Teaching Model for Grades 3-8 by Maureen McLaughlin and Mary Beth Allen, IRA, 2002.

Predict and Support
It is important that students learn that their predictions shouldn’t be wild guesses—predictions should be based on evidence from the text, illustrations, background knowledge, peers’ comments, or a combination of these. To model this, read aloud a selection, stopping periodically to make a prediction. Back up each prediction with evidence. Gradually begin to invite student predictions. As students predict, prompt them to explain their predictions by asking, “What made you say that?” “Can you tell me why you think so?” Encourage them to use evidence from the text to back up their predictions.

Confirm or Adjust
Proficient readers do not just predict before they read a selection. They continue to confirm or adjust their predictions and make new ones throughout a selection. To model this, record student predictions on chart paper during a read-aloud. Stop periodically to ask if their predictions are correct. If so, mark a “C” for “confirm” beside the prediction. If not, mark an “A” for “adjust” and have students generate a new prediction based on new clues. Teach students that it is okay to predict incorrectly as long as they are basing their predictions on clues from the text and as long as they adjust their predictions when evidence from the text contradicts their predictions.

Predicting With the Table of Contents

Have students work in pairs to generate predictions based on the chapter title of the table of contents. Have all pairs make predictions about a single chapter or assign each pair a different chapter. Record on sticky notes or chart paper. After reading each chapter, have students confirm or adjust predictions.
Source: Reciprocal Teaching at Work: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Lori Oczkus, IRA, 2003.

1. Introduction of the Four Strategies
   During this stage the teacher introduces the four strategies involved in a reciprocal teaching lesson. Each strategy is explicitly taught and practiced. During this stage it is important to teach students when, how, and why to use each strategy. This has been shown to help increase student motivation. It also helps students internalize and use strategies independently. See pp. 9-27 for mini-lessons. The purpose of these mini-lessons and practice activities is to prepare students to engage in reciprocal teaching dialogue. The activities, done in isolation, are not reciprocal teaching.
2. Teacher-Led Stage
   During this stage the teacher assumes the role of the student leader in a reciprocal teaching group and models the use of the four strategies through think-alouds and demonstration. Gradually students are invited to participate and begin to assume group leadership roles. The purpose of this stage is to prepare students for reciprocal teaching dialogue. Guided reading groups provide an ideal setting fro this stage of implementation.
3. Collaborative Stage
   Students work in pairs and eventually in groups of four or five and begin to assume more leadership responsibility. Coaching and corrective feedback are crucial aspects of this stage. Guided reading groups provide a natural setting for this stage, as well, because the teacher is available to guide students and give the necessary feedback.
4. Reciprocal Stage
   At this stage reciprocal teaching is fully implemented. Heterogeneous groups of four to five students work independently as the teacher moves from the role of coach to the role of observer. Stronger students help support less capable students. Literature circles and book clubs are a natural setting for this stage.

Source: A Practical Guide to Reciprocal Teaching by Shira Lubliner, Wright Group/McGraw-Hill, 2001.