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.
