Reciprocal Teaching in the Classroom: Fostering Reading Comprehension, Reading Fluency and Strategy Use

This study investigated how the reading comprehension of 5th-grade students can be improved through reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). The sample consisted of 380 students of 15 classes who were assigned either to one of three conditions: (a) training of the four reading strategies clarifying, questioning, predicting, and summarizing (4S), (b) training of the three reading strategies clarifying, questioning, and predicting (3S), or (c) training of reading fluency (LF; no instruction of reading strategies). Training success was assessed at pretest, posttest, and follow-up test (9 weeks after the end of the intervention) using standardized reading comprehension and fluency tests, and experimenter-developed tests for quality of strategy use. Students of all conditions could improve their reading fluency at posttest. At follow-up test, LF students outperformed students of the two strategy conditions. At posttest but not at follow-up test, 3S students outperformed LF and 4S students at reading comprehension. Further, 3S and 4S students wrote better summaries than LF students at posttest. Process data showed that 3S and 4S students could improve the quality of their questions and predictions during the course of the intervention. Modifications are discussed to foster the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching in regular classrooms.