Shares with fellow teachers the author's professional journey with reciprocal teaching. Describes the technique, highlights students' pre- and post-reciprocal teaching perspectives on themselves and their reading, shares her daily journal entries, and offers conclusions. Hopes that others will be motivated to try this technique as it holds much…

Leaving a door unlocked is the same as giving everyone a key. Schools and teachers must heed this reminder and unlock the doors to understanding, shifting from an intellectual privacy perspective to one of shared intellectual empowerment where everyone holds the keys. Teachers must be learners and openly negotiate knowledge with students; they…

Addresses myth that children can comprehend text simply because they can decode the words in it. Provides evidence to support claim that developing readers benefit from explicit teaching of comprehension strategies via direct explanation and modeling of strategies. (Author/JDM)

Students use the Internet for schoolwork in ways that reach far beyond what schools require or support, and they conceive of information literacy in paradigms different from those of adults. Recent surveys by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Levin and Arafeh 2002) on the role of the Internet in schools suggest that there is a…

Presents an action research project that investigated reciprocal teaching's effect on reading comprehension in the content areas. Considers reciprocal teaching's benefits for students, instructional strategies, its effect on literature circles, and its use in content areas. (SG)

Explains the use of classwide peer tutoring to actively engage all students, including those with disabilities, and to promote mastery, accuracy, and fluency in content learning. Explains the classwide peer-tutoring approach and reviews research on the efficacy of this approach. (DB)

The effects of strategy instruction (reciprocal teaching methods) on reading comprehension were studied by comparing 53 high school students receiving strategy instruction with 22 who did not. Results indicate that strategy instruction is superior to traditional methods in fostering reading comprehension as measured by experimenter designed tests.…

Presents an experimental evaluation of a trial implementation of reciprocal teaching procedures by high school teachers to address reading comprehension deficits. Forty-six students were exposed to 1 of 3 conditions: 12-16 reciprocal teaching sessions, 6-8 sessions, or no treatment. Significant gains were observed with students in the extended…

A considerable amount of literature on peer coaching suggests that the professional development of teachers can be improved through experimentation, observation, reflection, the exchange of professional ideas, and shared problem-solving. Reciprocal peer coaching provides teachers with an opportunity to engage in such activities in an integrated…

This article reports findings from a case study into reciprocal learning in tutor groups in a research-based master's programme, run jointly by Roehampton University, London, UK and Fontys OSO, The Netherlands. The research was designed to investigate to what extent, and how, forms of reciprocal learning arose in tutor groups for experienced…

Background: Adults with a mild intellectual disability (ID) often show poor decoding and reading comprehension skills. The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of teaching text comprehension strategies to these adults. Specific research goals were to determine (1) the effects of two instruction conditions, i.e. strategy instruction to…

Describes how the Spectrum Teaching Styles can help physical educators develop an instructional environment that allows learners to meet the national content standards for physical education while providing learners with a quality educational experience. The paper discusses the development and use of the Spectrum and the development of…

This study examined the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching during social studies instruction with several students with learning disabilities in inclusive classrooms (grades 4-6). Results indicated that all students improved their performance on comprehension measures and students with learning disabilities significantly improved their ability…

Teachers in Highland Park, Michigan, conducted research and began an interactive reading-instruction program for students who were not succeeding in school. Reciprocal teaching, which trains students to use four strategies (generating questions, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting) for improving reading comprehension, raised hopes,…

In this article, the authors explore the concept of instructional scaffolding as it applies to facilitating students' reading comprehension. They argue that scaffolding is a highly flexible and adaptable model of instruction that supports students as they acquire both basic skills and higher order thinking processes, allows for explicit…