Reciprocal teaching of reading comprehension in a New Zealand high school

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of a trial implementation of reciprocal teaching procedures by high school teachers to address reading comprehension deficits in a group of their students. Forty-six students with the lowest scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension in seven eighth-grade classes participated in the study. Following 3 hours of instruction in reciprocal teaching procedures, four classroom teachers and two support teachers ran eight reciprocal teaching groups. Four of these groups, 20 students in all, were exposed to between 12 and 16 reciprocal teaching sessions, while 15 students in the other four groups received between six and eight sessions. The remaining 11 students served as a no-treatment comparison group. Pre- and posttest scores on the standardized test served as the dependent measure. Significant gains were observed with students in the extended program, with no significant differences observed between the short program and comparison groups. Follow-up assessments of extended program students between 3 and 7 months later showed a maintenance of comprehension gains. Implications for high schools are discussed in terms of the absence of student progress with insufficient spaced practice in metacognitive skill training and strategic resourcing for remedial comprehension instruction.     

The role of structured cooperative learning groups for enhancing Chinese primary students’ reading comprehension

The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two types of cooperative learning groups used in reciprocal teaching (RT) classes (i.e. high-structured vs. low-structured groups) for enhancing students’ reading comprehension. The participants were 235 Hong Kong Chinese Grade 6 students in nine classes. Reading comprehension tests and questionnaires were used to investigate students’ reading comprehension, teachers’ cognitive support and perceptions of cooperative learning. The findings indicate that high achievers from the low-structured RT group significantly outperformed high achievers from the high-structured RT group in post-test reading comprehension, whereas low achievers from the high-structured RT group significantly outperformed low achievers from the low-structured RT group in follow-up reading comprehension. Students from the high-structured RT group reported higher scores for their perceptions of cooperative learning than students from the low-structured RT group.     

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low‐achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

Low‐achieving adolescents are known to have difficulties with reading comprehension. This article discusses how reciprocal teaching can improve low‐achieving adolescents' reading comprehension in whole‐classroom settings (as opposed to small‐group settings) and to what extent intervention effects are dependent on teacher behaviour. Over the course of 1 year, experimental teachers (n = 10) were given extensive training and coaching aimed at using principles of reciprocal teaching, while control teachers (n = 10) used their regular teaching method. Observations of teacher behaviour were focused on instruction of reading strategies, modelling and support of group work and were performed in both experimental and control classes, comprising a total of 369 students (mean age = 13.01). Our study shows that reciprocal teaching contributed to adolescent low achievers' reading comprehension only when experimental teachers provided high‐quality strategy instruction. In addition, results suggest that the quality of implementation of reciprocal teaching in whole‐classroom settings should receive more research attention.

Highlights

What is already known about this topic

• Reciprocal teaching is a method of instructing and guiding learners in reading comprehension.
• It consists of a set of three related instructional principles: (a) teaching comprehension‐fostering reading strategies; (b) expert modelling, scaffolding and fading; and (c) students practising and discussing reading strategies with other students, guided and coached by the teacher.
• High quality of implementation of reciprocal teaching by teachers in classrooms is difficult.

What this paper adds

• After 1 year of implementing reciprocal teaching, no main effects of the treatment were established.
• Intervention effects were moderated by quality of instruction: strategy instruction led to higher scores on reading comprehension in the treatment condition but not in the control condition.
• Implementation of the instructional principles was by no means optimal: teachers were unable to provide detailed guidance to students working in small groups and modelling of strategies requires more experience and theoretical insight in the use and nature of reading strategies.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• Extensive training and coaching are needed for teachers to become experts in reciprocal teaching.
• Teachers need hands‐on tools to be able to guide students in their collaborative group work and to fade the teachers' role in order to allow more individual self‐regulation by students in their use of strategies.
• Implementation quality has to be taken into account when doing effectiveness research and when adopting new, theory‐based didactic approaches.

     

Reciprocal teaching of social studies in inclusive elementary classrooms

Reading comprehension relies on the use of metacognitive strategies. Reciprocal teaching has been found to be an effective comprehension technique to use with students with learning disabilities. This study examined the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching during social studies instruction with several students with learning disabilities in fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade inclusive classrooms. One hundred and twenty-eight students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 participated. Four comprehension assessments were administered, as well as an external measure and 30-day maintenance assessment. A mixed-design MANOVA was used to determine interaction on three reading comprehension measures. Results indicated that all students improved their performance on comprehension measures compared with students in the control groups. Improvement continued to be displayed after 30 days in both the sixth and the fourth grades. Students with learning disabilities significantly improved their ability to compose summaries compared to the control students.     

The Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on Reading Comprehension in Mainstream and Special (SLI) Education

Reading comprehension of fourth and sixth graders was promoted with reciprocal teaching in three mainstream classes, and three special classes for pupils with specific language impairment (SLI). Four cognitive strategies were used to enhance these pupils' reading comprehension skills. Six coordinated, 5‐week interventions were held during regular class sessions in the spring and autumn terms of 2003. These interventions, which varied in length from 10 to 15 lessons, were given to all students attending fourth‐grade and sixth‐grade science classes in general science and sixth‐grade history lessons. A control group/experiment group design was used. According to pre‐, post‐ and retention tests the intervention proved to be beneficial, especially to the mainstream fourth‐grade class. Some positive development could also be noticed in the SLI groups. The results of children improved mostly in expert‐designed tests on reading comprehension. According to the interviews, children and teachers were pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in the interventions and to learn a new method of improving reading comprehension.     

Clinical Examination of Three Methods of Teaching Reading Comprehension to Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students: From Research to Classroom Applications

This study shows how to integrate research-based teaching methods in reading comprehension with real classroom teaching activities. The performance of 30 male (n = 13; mean age = 11.51 years) and female (n = 17; mean age = 12.11 years) deaf and hard-of-hearing students from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was examined under three teaching conditions: the key word strategy, modified reciprocal teaching, and the basic reading approach. Analyses showed that the key word strategy and modified reciprocal teaching significantly enhanced students' overall performance in reading comprehension scores. Results revealed that any one of these three methods would be adequate for teaching factual information. However, results indicated that the key word strategy and modified reciprocal teaching would be better for teaching factual information, comprehension, and memorization skills than the basic reading approach.     

Peer feedback mediates the impact of self-regulation procedures on strategy use and reading comprehension in reciprocal teaching groups

The goal of this research was to highlight the role social regulatory processes play in making students’ teamwork in reciprocal teaching (RT) groups (a classroom activity in which students take the teacher’s role in small group reading sessions) effective. In addition to teamwork quality, we expected peer feedback to be a key factor in enhancing students’ reading comprehension achievements. Because previous research (Schünemann et al. in Contemp Educ Psychol 38:289–305, 2013) has shown that procedures of self-regulated learning (SRL) augment the effects of RT methods, we further assumed that such procedures would promote the quality of students’ collaborative efforts. In a cluster-randomized trial, students in 12 fifth-grade classes practiced a strategic approach to reading either in a RT condition or in a RT + SRL condition. In one of the 14 sessions, students’ interactive behavior was videotaped. Strategy use and reading comprehension were assessed at pretest, posttest, and maintenance. Performance differences between conditions were reliable only at maintenance. A multilevel mediation analysis showed that relative to RT students, RT + SRL students were better able to provide their teammates with informative feedback and organize their group work in a task-focused manner. Only feedback quality mediated the sustainability of treatment effects on strategy use and reading comprehension. In essence, this research suggests that effective reading comprehension trainings should integrate explicit instruction and practice in reading strategies, SRL, and focus on supportive peer processes in small groups with extensive instruction and practice in peer feedback.     

Improving students' reading comprehension skills: Effects of strategy instruction and reciprocal teaching

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of three different forms of strategy instruction on 210 elementary-school students' reading comprehension. Students were assigned to any one of three intervention conditions or to a traditional instruction condition (control condition). Training students were taught four reading strategies (summarizing, questioning, clarifying, predicting) and practiced these strategies in small groups (reciprocal teaching), pairs, or instructor-guided small groups. At both the post- and follow-up test the intervention students attained higher scores on an experimenter-developed task of reading comprehension and strategy use than the control students who received traditional instruction. Furthermore, students who practiced reciprocal teaching in small groups outperformed students in instructor-guided and traditional instruction groups on a standardized reading comprehension test.     

Integrating self-regulation in whole-class reciprocal teaching: A moderator–mediator analysis of incremental effects on fifth graders’ reading comprehension

In this classroom intervention study, reciprocal teaching (RT) of reading strategies was combined with explicit instruction in self-regulated learning (SRL) to promote the reading comprehension of fifth-grade students (N = 306). Twelve intact classes were randomly assigned either to an RT + SRL condition or to an RT condition without explicit instruction in self-regulation. Three additional classes served as a no-treatment comparison group. Strategies instruction was delivered by trained assistants in conventional German language lessons. Students practiced the application of these strategies in small groups. Both at posttest and at maintenance (8 weeks after the intervention), students in the two intervention conditions (RT and RT + SRL) outperformed comparison students in measures of reading comprehension, strategy-related task performance, and self-efficacy for reading. Relative to RT students, students in the RT + SRL condition were better able to maintain training-induced performance gains over the follow-up interval. A moderated mediation analysis revealed that this difference in the sustainability of the two treatments was (a) mediated by the successful mastery of the learned strategies and (b) most evident among students with poor reading fluency skills.     

The effects of an interactive instructional strategy for enhancing reading comprehension and content area learning for students with learning disabilities

This study investigated the effectiveness of an interactive vocabulary instructional strategy, semantic-feature analysis (SFA), on the content area text comprehension of adolescents with learning disabilities. Prior to reading a social studies text, students in resource classes either completed a relationship chart as part of the SFA condition or used the dictionary to write definitions and sentences as part of the contrast condition. Passage comprehension was measured on a multiple-choice test consisting of two types of items, vocabulary and conceptual. Comprehension was measured immediately following teaching and again 6 months after teaching. Prior knowledge for the content of the passage served as a covariate. Results indicated that students in the SFA instructional condition had significantly greater measured comprehension immediately following and 6 months after initial teaching. These results are discussed in relation to concept-driven, interactive strategies for teaching content and facilitating text comprehension.     

Intervention Provided to Linguistically Diverse Middle School Students with Severe Reading Difficulties

This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Most were Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) with identified disabilities. Nearly all demonstrated severely limited oral vocabularies in English and, for ELLs, in both English and Spanish. Students were randomly assigned to receive the research intervention (n = 20) or typical instruction provided in their school's remedial reading or special education classes (n = 18). Students in the treatment group received daily explicit and systematic small-group intervention for 40 minutes over 13 weeks, consisting of a modified version of a phonics-based remedial program augmented with English as a Second Language practices and instruction in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Results indicated that treatment students did not demonstrate significantly higher outcomes in word recognition, comprehension, or fluency than students who received the school's typical instruction and that neither group demonstrated significant growth over the course of the study. Significant correlations were found between scores on teachers' ratings of students' social skills and problem behaviors and posttest decoding and spelling scores, and between English oral vocabulary scores and scores in word identification and comprehension. The researchers hypothesize that middle school students with the most severe reading difficulties, particularly those who are ELLs and those with limited oral vocabularies, may require intervention of considerably greater intensity than that provided in this study. Further research directly addressing features of effective remediation for these students is needed.     

The effect of the success-oriented teacher on pupils' perceived personal control and attitude toward learning

After special training, 67 teachers of the third through sixth grades, with a total of 1853 pupils, each conducted an experience-based social studies program in his or her own class during the semester following the training. The program, the Mini-Society, requires considerable pupil autonomy. Half of the classes were taught by teachers with the highest success orientation toward teaching. These students showed significantly larger residual gains on perceived personal control of their own academic success and failure and on favorable attitude toward learning than did students in classes taught by the other half of the teachers, who were oriented more toward avoidance of failure in their teaching.     

培智学校实施交互教学模式的探索与实验

以培智学校24名7年级不同智障程度的学生为研究对象,考察了交互教学在培智学校学生阅读教学中的效果,并进一步探讨交互教学模式对智障儿童的适用性。研究采用两因素完全随机实验设计,进行为期八周的教学实验。结果表明:(1)应用交互教学进行策略学习是有效的,实验组学生在提问和小结策略的使用上与常规教学组有显著差异;(2)交互教学实验组学生在阅读理解成绩和理解监控上显著优于对照组,后者的差异主要体现在轻度学生之间的差异上。     

Improving Reading Comprehension Strategies through Listening

The goal of this study was to determine whether it is possible to teach children with serious decoding problems four text comprehension strategies in listening contexts. The subjects were 9-11 year old students from special schools for children with learning disabilities. All the students were very poor at decoding; half of the group were also poor listeners, whereas the other half consisted of normal listeners. The experimental children were trained in strategies of clarifying, questioning, summarising and predicting through a combination of reciprocal teaching and direct instruction. The results indicated significant programme effects on a strategic listening comprehension test. A transfer effect on general listening comprehension and general reading comprehension tests was not found. The poor listeners within the experimental group did not perform better than the normal listeners.     

Rethinking strategy instruction: direct reading strategy instruction versus computer‐based guided practice

There are many established reading strategy training programmes, which explicitly teach strategic and meta‐cognitive knowledge to improve reading comprehension. Although instruction in strategy knowledge leads to improvements in meta‐cognitive skills, the effects do not always transfer to reading comprehension. Therefore, to investigate preconditions for knowledge transfer, two different strategy training programmes were implemented in nine classes of Grade 6 students (N = 148) over the course of one school year. One programme involved teacher‐directed instruction of declarative meta‐cognitive knowledge (Reading Detectives; Rühl & Souvignier, 2006). The other aimed at improving executive meta‐cognition by guided practice: students worked with a computer program based on latent semantic analysis (LSA) (conText) and received immediate feedback on written summaries. Although both groups improved their strategy knowledge to the same extent, the conText group showed a greater improvement in reading comprehension. These fndings suggest that guided practice, which is characterised by intensive practice and individualised corrective feedback, is superior to explicitly teaching strategy knowledge.     

Improving Academic Performance of Sport and Exercise Science Undergraduate Students in Gross Anatomy Using a Near-Peer Teaching Program

Peer and near-peer teaching programs are common in medical undergraduate courses. However, there are no studies that have investigated the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of undergraduate students pursuing sport and exercise science coursework. This study was conducted to analyze the effectiveness of such a program for students who participated in a course on the functional anatomy of the locomotor apparatus. A total of 39 student participants were divided into two groups: students in one group voluntarily attended at least one session of a near-peer teaching program, and students in the other group attended no sessions. The final grade (range 0–100%) was recorded and used as an indicator of academic performance. The final grade of students who attended the near-peer teaching program (69.5 ± 16.0%) was 38.7% higher (P = 0.002, d = 1.06) than those who did not (50.1 ± 20.4%). When the academic performance of the same students was evaluated in another course (exercise physiology) that did not offer a near-peer teaching program, there were no significant differences between the groups (students who attended or did not attend the near-peer teaching program). A significant positive association was found between near-peer teaching program frequency and the number of students approved and not approved in the course (P = 0.041). A significant difference (P = 0.001) was found in the attendance at regular classes between the group who participated in the near-peer teaching program (median: 62 hours; IQR [interquartile ranges]: 4.0 hours) and those who did not (median: 58 hours; IQR: 4.0 hours). Gender was not a moderating factor on academic performance or near-peer teaching program attendance. These results highlight the effectiveness of a near-peer teaching program on the academic performance of students from a sport and exercise science degree program while enrolled in an anatomy course. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Text comprehension strategy instruction with poor readers

The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of teachingtext comprehension strategies to children with decoding andreading comprehension problems and with a poor or normallistening ability. Two experiments are reported. Four textcomprehension strategies, viz., question generation, summarizing,clarification, and predicting were taught through directinstruction and reciprocal teaching. In both experiments, effectswere measured according to a pretest – posttest – retentiontest – control group design. Dependent variables wereexperimenter-developed strategic reading and listening tests, andstandardized reading and listening comprehension tests. In thefirst experiment the subjects were 9 to 11-year-old poor readersfrom special schools for children with learning disabilities. Inthis experiment, the intervention program's texts and strategyinstructions were presented in listening settings only. Thesubjects in the second experiment were 10-year-old children fromregular elementary schools and 9 to 11-year-old children fromspecial schools. They were also poor readers but their decodingperformance was not as poor as in the subjects in experiment 1.In experiment 2, the intervention program involved textpresentations in alternating reading and listening lessons.Although in general, normal listeners performed better on allcomprehension tests than poor listeners, there were nodifferential program effects for the two listening levels. Cleareffects of both programs were found on strategic reading andlistening tests administered directly after the interventions. Inthe first experiment, maintenance test performance showedprolonged program benefits, whereas in the second experimentthese maintenance effects were blurred by unexpected gains of thecontrol groups of students, especially from regular schools.Finally, apart from some local successes, neither of the twoexperiments offered stable evidence of transfer of comprehensionstrategy training to standardized general listening and readingcomprehension tests.     

Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text in High School Social Studies Classes

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of Promoting Acceleration of Comprehension and Content Through Text intervention implemented with 11th-grade students enrolled in U.S. History classes. Using a within-teacher randomized design, the study was conducted in 41 classes (23 treatment classes) with 14 teachers providing the treatment. Students in the treatment condition performed significantly better than students in the typical instruction comparison condition on a measure of content acquisition at posttest (ES = 0.36), as well as 4 (ES =.22) and 12 (ES =.24) weeks following treatment. There were no differences between treatment and comparison groups on measures of social studies reading comprehension or more general reading comprehension.     

Can Middle School Students with Serious Reading Difficulties Help Each Other and Learn Anything?

This investigation was intended to examine the effects of teaching middle school students with learning disabilities and mild mental retardation to tutor one another in reading comprehension strategies. All students were reading significantly below grade level and many students exhibited behavior problems in addition to their primary disability area. Students were randomly assigned to a tutoring or traditional reading instruction condition. Within the tutoring condition, students were matched into tutoring dyads, trained in the tutoring procedures, and taught specific reading comprehension strategies. Reciprocal tutoring was employed, such that students assumed roles of both tutor and tutee during daily reading periods. Performance on reading comprehension tests following tutoring yielded significant performance advantages for students involved in tutoring. Observational, survey, and interview data revealed that students enjoyed tutoring more than their traditional instruction, appeared to see the value and benefits of the tutoring, and wanted to include tutoring as part of their other classes, such as science and social studies. Findings are discussed with respect to the strengths and challenges associated with the use of tutoring to provide strategic instruction to students with special learning needs.     

LINKING STUDENTS AND CLASSES: STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING LEARNING AND THINKING

Research in cognitive and social psychology is beginning to suggest strategies which will allow us to improve students’ learning and thinking skills. Classroom studies using four teaching strategies based on research in these areas will be described. The four techniques are: using modified cooperative learning groups within classes; linking upper‐ and lower‐level classes for metacognitive instruction; using short‐term, coached cooperative learning groups; and using student mentors. A common factor in the four techniques is that students think aloud in groups as they solve problems or discuss controversial issues. Modified cooperative learning groups were successful in upper‐level courses. Thinking and learning skills improved in these classes. However, in lower‐level courses, particularly those which contained underprepared students, more guidance (modeling, coaching and structure) was needed than was available within most peer cooperative groups. Modeling and coaching were provided by linking students from upper‐level courses with lower‐level students on short‐term, issue‐based projects and for semester‐long classes. Such arrangements result in what Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) have termed cognitive apprenticeships. Cognitive apprenticeships lead to improved attitudes toward the content area, perception of improved cognitive skills and some gains in content mastery.