Think-alouds are the cornerstone to comprehension instruction. Think-alouds help make reading strategies concrete by allowing students to “see” what is happening inside the teacher’s head as s/he reads. During a think-aloud the teacher reads aloud a text, stopping at strategic points to explain what she is thinking and how she is solving problems. Nancie Atwell calls this “taking off the top of my head” and inviting students to hear her thinking and see what she does as an adult reader and writer. Think-alouds are an effective way to model metacognition for students.

Think-alouds help students:

1. Understand that reading should make sense.
2. Move beyond the literal meaning of the text.
3. Learn how to read using a variety of strategies.
4. Use particular strategies when reading particular types of text.
5. Become more metacognitive readers (able to think about their own reading and thinking processes).

Conducting a Think-Aloud

1. Select a strategy to highlight.
2. Choose a short, interesting piece of text.
3. Explain the purpose and how this strategy improves reading.
4. Read the text aloud to students. Stop periodically to think aloud, focusing on the target strategy.
5. Have students identify words and phrases that helped you use a strategy.
6. Help students identify other situations in which they could use the same strategy.
7. Provide follow-up lessons that reinforce the think-aloud.

Source: Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D., Scholastic, 2001.

• There is no one right way to teach reciprocal teaching or one right order in which to introduce the steps.
• Before students can use the four strategies simultaneously, they will need practice with each individual strategy.
• Teaching one strategy alone can be a good comprehension mini-lesson, but it is not reciprocal teaching.  Reciprocal teaching involves using ALL four strategies simultaneously for the purpose of constructing meaning.
• Reciprocal teaching was designed as an interactive discussion technique.  Refrain from the temptation of having students complete the strategies in worksheet form.
• Corrective feedback is crucial to the success of reciprocal teaching.
• Reciprocal teaching alone is not enough to constitute a comprehensive reading program.  It is just one tool. Students need exposure to other comprehension strategies.

1. Scaffolding: Providing support, coaching, and corrective feedback for students as they begin to use reciprocal teaching strategies.
2. Think-alouds: Modeling the use of cognitive strategies by pausing to reflect aloud in front of students. Making thinking visible to students.
3. Metacognition: Thinking about one’s own thinking. Through reciprocal teaching students learn to reflect on their own cognitive processes.
4. Collaborative learning: Students work together to construct meaning from text.

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

No special materials are required to implement the reciprocal teaching model. Because reciprocal teaching was designed to be an interactive dialogue, most of the time is spent talking! Chart paper and/or an overhead are helpful for modeling during whole- or small-group introductory or practice lessons. Paper-pencil activities can provide reinforcement as students are introduced to the four strategies. Once students begin integrating the four strategies, however, the emphasis is almost strictly on reading and dialoguing.

Research has clearly shown that when students are asked to learn information without actively using procedures to construct understanding, they ultimately forget the content. Through reciprocal teaching, teachers explicitly guide students through the meaning-making process.

Reciprocal teaching has a well-documented record of improving students’ reading comprehension proficiency (NIH, 2000). Palinscar and Brown (1986) found that when the reciprocal teaching model was used as an intervention technique with struggling students for as few 15-20 days, their reading comprehension scores improved from 30% to 80%. Follow-up testing indicated that these students maintained these scores up to a year later.

1. Predicting: Readers use background knowledge and clues from the pictures/text to anticipate what will happen next or what they will learn.
2. Questioning: Readers formulate main idea and inference questions using the question words who, what, why, when, where, how, and what if.
3. Clarifying: Readers identify words, phrases, or ideas that are difficult or confusing. They learn to apply fix-up strategies to solve problems as they read.
4. Summarizing: Readers construct an overall meaning of text selection by providing a clear, concise summary of what they have read.

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.

Click to view video demonstrations of reciprocal teaching in action:

• Part 1 
• Part 2

Current reading research has clearly found that children need to spend large quantities of time reading books they can read accurately, fluently, and with good comprehension.  Leading reading researcher Richard Allington believes this is so important that in his book What Really Matters for Struggling Readers, he devoted a whole chapter to it titled “Kids Need Books They Can Read.”  It’s one thing to be aware of this, but how do we get our students to do it?  Below are a few ways to introduce this concept to your students.  I invite you to share some of your own.

Five-Finger Rule

Have students read the first page or two of a book. Tell them to put up one finger for each word they cannot read. If all five fingers are up at the end of a page or two, the book is probably too difficult and they should find an easier book to read.  If there are two or three fingers up, the child should begin reading and if he is able to read it fluently and with comprehension, it is a just right book.  For children reading shorter texts you may want to change it to the Three-Finger Rule.

Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians

This twist on the familiar fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a cute way to introduce children to the concept of “too hard”, “too easy”, and “just right” books. The Upstart Catalog has even created bookmarks and posters to accompany this book.  This book can be used in conjunction with the Five-Finger Rule described above.

Bicycle Analogy

This is one more way to introduce the same concept.  I saw this poster, created by another teacher ,and thought is was a great visual for teaching this concept and one that children can easily identify with.

• The Fluent Reader by Tim Rasinski, Scholastic, 2003.
• “A Focus on Fluency: How One Teacher Incorporated Fluency with Her Reading Curriculum” by Lorraine Griffith and Tim Rasinski, The Reading Teacher, 58, 126-137.
• “Speed Does Matter in Reading” by Tim Rasinski, The Reading Teacher, 54, 146-151.
• Increasing Your Students’ Reading Fluency: Strategies That Work Grades 1-3 BER Video Training Program www.ber.org

Reader’s Theater is a text or part of a text transformed into a script. It does not rely on costumes or props and the lines are read, not memorized. Students read their parts and use their voices to express the meaning of the text. Students read, rehearse, and perform for an audience, making this a natural, authentic way to promote repeated reading of a text. Students don’t even realize they are rereading because they are so involved in the “play.”

Follow this link for the amazing story of a teacher who used Reader’s Theater to dramatically improved her students’ reading skills:   Lorraine Griffith

Check out the websites below for FREE reader’s theater scripts and other resources.

• Readers Theatre
• Reading Lady

Aaron Shepard

Timeless Teacher Stuff

The following picture books are written in a format that is conducive for Reader’s Theater.  These make great “buddy reading” books.