The subjects of this study were nine second grade students in an urban title 1 charter elementary school. The reciprocal teaching sessions occurred daily during a four month period and were incorporated into the small group guided reading program. The mclass TRC and DIBELS middle of the year benchmark assessments, ELA Interims, and iReady Reading Diagnostic were administered to all students as measures to determine their baseline reading comprehension ability.
Data Collection
Data was collected from multiple sources throughout the course of the study including reading comprehension assessments, student self-evaluations, student artifacts and observations. Observations were recorded as anecdotal notes during small group guided reading instruction and individual reading conferences. Anecdotal notes were kept on how students used strategies to make meaning of a text, and their ability to verbalize the meaning they constructed. Student self-evaluations were conducted before, during and after the study to determine how students viewed reading and their frequency of questioning, predicting, summarizing, and clarifying while reading. Student artifacts were collected on a weekly basis as students responded to their reading and “stop-and-jot” their thinking on sticky notes. When analyzing student reading responses and observations I used a rubric and checklist to determine if students could use reciprocal teaching strategy language, metacognitive thinking of their reading, and evidence from the text to support.
Findings Between phase comparisons show significant improvements in reading comprehension based on qualitative and quantitative data. Within the two month study, there were observed gains in reading comprehension and metacognitive thinking based on assessment probes and progress monitoring. The preliminary findings indicate that reciprocal teaching increased students’ awareness and use of metacognitive strategies which had a positive effect on student reading comprehension.