For over a decade, this reserch team has been exploring the
effects of reciprocal teaching on increasing comprehension and
learning from text. The research reported in this chapter
describes the results of using reciprocal teaching with
first-grade children engaged in instruction designed to assist
them in understanding biological concepts.
The researchers predict that children in a reciprocal teaching
group will perform better on reading task than a control group
because reciprocal teaching involves more and less accomplished
learners coming together in a social community where language is
used as a tool. As the teacher provides a scaffold for learners
as they move through zones of proximal development, learners
internalize knowledge structures to mediate similar tasks.
Reciprocal teaching is an instructional strategy where the
teacher and a group of students take turns leading discussion on
a common text. A set of strategies (asking questions,
summarizing, clarification, and prediction) are used to engaged
children in the joint construction of the meaning of text. The
role of the teacher is to scaffold children's use of the
strategies by providing explicit instruction and feedback.
The subjects for the study were 6 experimental teachers who
taught groups of 6 children to understand biological concepts
presented in text, using reciprocal teaching. A matched control
group listened to the same passages read by the experimental
group. A set of pretests and posttests measuring comprehension
(recall and inference) and use of principles presented in the
texts were administered. A similar set of comprehension measures
was administaered periodically during treatment. Treatment
lasted for 20 days (reading/discussion of 20 texts with
reciprocal teaching as the instructional strategy.
The findings of the study are compelling. At the end of the
first 10 days of treatment, experimentals scored 49%, compared to
37 % for controls, on comprehension. At 20 days,
experimentals were at the 70% level and controls were at 39%.
Similar results were obtained for identifying analogy between
instructional and assessment texts. On a sorting task, the
experimental group used thematic information 54% of the time.
The controld group used thematic information 14% of the time.
In reflecting on the study, the team identifies two issues: (1)
by what processes does individual performance (mastery or
internalization) rise from activity of the collective, (2) how
can the tension between discovery learning and predetermined
curriculum be resolved (The issue was discussed at length last
year on xlchc in the goal discussion. Check the contributions
made by Wells and Lemke).
Along with the two issues above, I would add a third.
Instruction of this kind calls for teachers to give/share
instruction with children. Teachers do not seem to be willing to
give up their power for many reasons. As a result when children
are exposed to instruction of this kind, its effects wash out.
One solution is to find what Wertsch calls institutional spaces
for this practice.
Comments?
Bill Blanton