Research indicates that readers who struggle benefit from explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction, such as reciprocal teaching, which is the explicit teaching of reading comprehension strategies to students. Reciprocal teaching was created by Palincsar and Brown in 1984 and is rooted in the theoretical work of Lev Vygotsky who developed the concepts of the zone of proximal development of children giving support to one another. The term “reciprocal” describes the nature of the interactions, because each person reciprocates, or acts in response. The instructional approach is characterized by the scaffolding and explicit instruction which include guided practice and modeling of four main comprehension strategies (predicting, generating questions, clarifying, and summarizing) and social interaction for learners to improve their cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Ahmadi and Gilakjani, 2012). Reciprocal teaching can be used to teach students how to coordinate the use of the four comprehension strategies, and apply the use of strategies to construct and enhance one’s understanding of the text (Pilonieta and Medina, 2009).
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework of reciprocal teaching is based on three sociocultural theories: the zone of proximal development, proleptic teaching, and expert scaffolding.
The zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual developmental level of the thinking that children can do independently and the potential developmental level of the thinking that children can do with support (Ahmadi and Gilakjani, 2012).
Proleptic teaching, or the gradual release of responsibility, occurs in instruction in which a teacher shapes a student until he or she is ready to perform the task independently (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). This gradual release of responsibility is when the responsibility of understanding and learning is shifted from the teacher to the student, making the student the expert. The goal is to encourage students not only to become independent readers, but also to respond to text independently while assuming ownership of own learning (King and Stuart, 2012).
Expert scaffolding is instructional scaffolding that provides students with the confidence and skills they need to be the expert. Researchers found scaffolding procedures included limiting the tasks to make them manageable, motivating students, pointing out critical features, and demonstrating solutions to problems and explaining them to the students (Ahmadi and Gilakjani, 2012). Teachers scaffold the instruction of reciprocal teaching strategies by first modeling how, when, and why good readers use the strategies. When students understand the procedural, conditional, and declarative knowledge of the strategies the students to learn how to perform a task, how to solve problems, and they learn how to perform the task independently.
Metacognitive Thinking
The goal of reciprocal teaching is to develop students' reading comprehension to become independent readers through the teaching of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Research indicates there is an association between reader’s metacognitive knowledge and reading comprehension, hence good readers use metacognitive skills in the reading process (Kelly, Moore, & Tuck, 1994). Metacognitive thinking are the actions that allow readers to control their own reading, known as “thinking about thinking” (Ahmadi and Gilakjani, 2012). Studies show that metacognitive strategy training improves students’ reading comprehension. Metacognitive thinking is an important tool that gives students insight into their learning styles and allows them to reflect on which tools helped them gain the most understanding (Stricklin, 2011). Studies show teachers can encourage student metacognitive abilities by building effective reading plans such as setting a purpose to the reading, making predictions, monitoring and controlling their thinking process, checking whether they understand, and evaluating their own reading process, problem solving skills, and comprehension (Ahmadi and Gilakjani, 2012). Reading is a constructive process where readers use both cognitive and metacognitive strategies to build their understanding and making meaning of a text. Using reciprocal teaching gives students the skills and strategies they need to metacognitively think about their thinking as they read, as well as, improve their reading comprehension.
Reading as a Strategic Process
Reciprocal teaching gives readers opportunities to engage in a strategic process of applying cognitive and metacognitive strategies to build their understanding of a text. The four main metacognitive reading strategies of reciprocal teaching:
Predicting
Questioning
Clarifying
Summarizing
The reciprocal teaching strategies of predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing, also referred to as the fab four can be applied to both fiction and nonfiction texts (Oczkus, 2013). Making predictions gives students a purpose for reading and keeps them engaged in their reading. Predicting is when a student recalls what they already know about a topic and hypothesizes about they might happen next, then they read to confirm, disprove, or revise their predictions (Hashey and Connors, 2003). Clarifying, another important strategy taught in reciprocal teaching, helps students make connections in a text. Clarifying words and ideas requires students to identify a word or concept that they do not understand and then to seek answers (Hashey and Connors, 2003). The strategy of questioning promotes students’ comprehension because students must understand what they have read in order to ask knowledgeable questions. Students ask and answer questions to understand the text. Summarizing helps students concentrate on the main idea and supporting details of the text (Hashey and Connors, 2003).