Reciprocal Teaching: Session 2

1. Reciprocal Teaching: Session 2

2. Aims of Session • Opportunities to share experiences of RT so far – identify benefits & problems • What are metacognitive skills? • Why are they important? • What are the links between these skills and reading comprehension? • Provide a brief introduction to other approaches to promoting comprehension

3. Workshop 1: Time for Reflection • How has it gone so far? - How have you implemented the approach? - How have the pupils reacted / engaged? - What have they done well? - Which aspects have they found difficult? - What practical issues or concerns have you encountered?

4. Effective Learning: Three Fundamentals Adey, Robertson & Venville, (2002) identify three fundamental elements for effective cognitive development / learning. • Opportunities for socially mediated learning • Cognitive challenge (i.e. opportunities to answer questions / solve problems which do not have a simple factual answer and requires thought to resolve) • Metacognitive challenge (i.e. opportunities to reflect on their own thinking processes)

5. Socially Mediated LearningThe Theory Behind RT: Remember Vygotsky? Vygotsky argued that; • Learning is socially constructed / language is of central importance • Children have a “zone of proximal development” (ZPD) – this is the gap between what children know and what they are capable of learning • Adults (or peers) acting as models can “scaffold” children in their attempts to learn / master new skills and bridge the ZPD

6. Cognitive Challenge What is Cognition? “Cognition is connected with thinking or conscious mental processes” • Sensory Processes / Perception • Memory • Thinking • Language • Planning, evaluating, reasoning, justifying, categorising, clarifying, judging, remembering, recalling, analysing, synthesising, predicting, summarising, reflecting, processing, problem-solving, perceiving, monitoring, comprehending, conceptualising.

7. RT and Cognitive Challenge • Pupils are encouraged to utilise / develop a wide range of cognitive skills • The nature of the dialogue used in RT encourages learners to develop a deeper understanding of the text – an understanding that goes beyond the literal / factual.

8. Metacognition • What is metacognition? THINKING ABOUT THINKING Or “The ability to reflect consciously on one’s cognition and cognitive ability” Or “The ability to plan & monitor thought processes”

9. Metacognition & Reading Proficient use of metacognitive strategies in reading enables children to: • Evaluate purposes for reading • Evaluate appropriate strategies • Formulate plans for reading and for selecting appropriate strategies • Monitor comprehension • Monitor what they do & don’t do well • Self-regulate learning

10. What do readers with poor metacognitive skills look like? • Think the purpose of reading is to “learn all the words” or read all the words correctly • They lack an awareness of what their relative strengths and weaknesses are • They plan poorly and fail to take different variables into account (e.g. allow less time for difficult texts / approach all reading tasks in the same way) • Less likely to re-read if they encounter comprehension problems • They are unaware of the strategies that able readers use. • When given strategies – they find it difficult to evaluate which strategy might be useful • They get confused about the vocabulary of reading (i.e. knowledge about language)

11. Workshop 2 • The findings of a recent RT study suggests that pupils Standard Scores in Comprehension, as measured by the NARA-II rose by 9 points. However, their metacognitive awareness did not improve to any great extent. • The key question is - does this matter?

12. More Approaches to Promoting Reading Comprehension

13. Other Approaches to Promote Reading Comprehension • Book detectives • Prepared Reading • Silent Sustained Reading / Rapid Retrieval of Information • Paired Reading • Paired Thinking • Using audio tapes to support less able readers

14. Prepared Reading • When children are given a passage, give them a purpose for reading through giving them a focused task. These tasks form the basis of discussion for next day. • find 10 interesting or unusual words • find your favourite paragraph • think of 10 adjectives to describe your character • think of 5 words which might describe how the character is feeling & explain • think of some hobbies for your character – say why he would like them • Workshop: In pairs / small groups: Can you come up with others?

15. Sustained Silent Reading / Rapid Retrieval of Information Pupils read passage independently. Teacher gives a series of questions (find the part of the story which…….) Children highlight this in some way (e.g. a number) as quickly as possible.

16. Paired Reading - Procedure

17. Why Paired Reading? • Cost effective • Time efficient • Highly effective (benefits for tutors and tutees in terms of both their basic reading skills & comprehension

18. Paired Thinking • Based on paired reading • Tutors asked to question tutees as well as read with them See www.dundee.ac.uk/psycholgy/trw

19. Supporting Less Able Pupils in using RT

20. Paired Reading • Use an able reader who is comfortable with the RT format • Use paired reading format. e.g. - divide text into 2-3 sections - follow paired reading procedure - at the end of each section – follow RT dialogue

21. Using Audio Materials • Ask able pupils to record a passage on to a tape • Pupils read passage along with recording • Use RT format • Overcomes decoding / fluency issues

22. Book Detectives Context: Whole class / small group lesson. Pupils reading or being read to. Each pupil in the group / class is assigned a particular role: • Summariser • Question master • Passage master • Illuminator • Word finder • Illustrator • Mind mapper • Link maker

23. Book Detectives: Roles • Summariser: Outlines key parts of the story • Question master: Formulates questions for the group • Passage master: Finds the most interesting paragraph in a story • Illuminator: Highlights aspects of the text associated with emotions and feelings • Word finder: Finds interesting, unusual, unknown words • Illustrator: Provides a picture • Mind mapper: Draws a mind map of all the important elements of the story • Link maker: Connects elements of the book to wider experience (e.g. an event, a person, a film, another book)