Reciprocal Teaching in the
Fourth-Grade Science Program
by Julie Edwards, an intermediate teacher at
Stonebridge Elementary School in Stillwater, Minnesota. Edwards
recently completed a master's degree in curriculum and instruction
and is a certified bilingual teacher of Spanish.
Reading as a major focus of science education has been
out of favor since the late 1950s. The discovery or "hands on" approach
to science is more enjoyable for students, because they are actively
involved in experimentation. Students are, however, missing an important
part of the science program-the reading of science material and
the application of this material.
Since it is impossible for students to learn all science facts,
concepts, principles, and theories through firsthand experimentation
and observation, much science content knowledge must be gained through
reading (Guthrie, 1984).
 Currently,
little time in the elementary classroom is devoted to teaching the
special vocabularies of science or to helping students develop strategies
for comprehending information. Ideally, the excitement of the discovery
or "hands on" science approach would be combined with the reading
of science material and the application of this material. I conducted
a study to determine whether it is beneficial for students to use
science textbooks along with the discovery approach in science class
at the fourth-grade level. I compared students who were taught comprehension
strategies with students who were taught little or no strategy to
use in reading science material. Reciprocal teaching-an approach
in which students in cooperative groups have a role in teaching
as well as learning-was used to teach comprehension strategies.
An approach developed by Palincsar and Brown usefully translates
into concrete activities easily understood by students: summarizing,
questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The most important activities,
summarizing and questioning, occur after every segment. Clarifying
and predicting are of lesser importance because they occur much
less frequently-only when the text lends itself to these activities.
Summarizing. When students cannot produce an adequate
synopsis of what they read, they clearly are not comprehending the
material, indicating that remedial action is needed. Formulating
potential test questions, clarifying ambiguities, and predicting
future content are activities that both improve comprehension and
allow students to monitor their own understanding.
Questioning. Questioning is an important activity
because it forces students to extract the gist of what they read.
After reading a selection, students are asked to generate a reasonable
test question-to put themselves into the teacher's shoes and come
up with a question he or she might ask. In generating the question,
students find it helpful to focus on the "5 W's and How," i.e.,
who, what, where, when, why and how.
Clarifying. Clarifying is necessary when students
don't understand ambiguities in the text and have asked that the
text be restated. Students may ask for the meaning of words or for
the clarification of a concept. Sometimes they might even discuss
their own errors in comprehension.
Predicting. Predicting is a fun activity for students;
they enjoy testing the validity of their predictions. Predicting
is especially effective when students are working with a two-part
story. It fits in with discovery science, because students are constantly
making predictions with their experiments.
When introducing reciprocal teaching to students, it is beneficial
to spend a great deal of time on each strategy. Allocating one day
to each strategy, with activities, gives students a definite understanding
of each one. After teaching students the four reciprocal teaching
strategies, give them a quiz. Ask them to identify them on paper
and to give an example of each.
Studies have shown that a passage of 100 words is a sufficient
text for students who are still learning comprehension strategies,
especially fourth-graders. Initially, teachers will find it better
to go paragraph by paragraph through the passage and to lead up
to reading the entire passage without stopping. At the paragraph
level, students are asked to come up with one important question
and one good summary sentence. At the passage level, students are
asked to come up with three or four important questions and two
or three ideas to support the summary.
Research suggests four to six students ought to make up each
group. Model the process yourself and go through the four strategies
several times. Move on to reciprocal teaching only when most of
the class understands the process.
Rotate the role of teacher, so each student in the group is given
the opportunity to lead. Studies have shown reciprocal teaching
to be most effective when carried out over a long period of time.
My research showed it to be effective over a twelve-day period,
with even better results when stretched out over an eighteen-day
period.
My research revealed that students who were taught the four reciprocal
teaching strategies without being actively engaged in the process
showed no gains in comprehension. Comprehension only improved when
students were actively involved in reciprocal teaching.
Reciprocal teaching fits easily into the science curriculum,
since science students often work in cooperative groups. Once a
curricular unit is selected, it does not take much time to find
compatible reading material and to divide it into passages of about
100 words. Students really enjoy reciprocal teaching and feel very
important when it is their turn to be the "teacher."
Reciprocal teaching is definitely the way to combine the excitement
of the discovery or "hands on" science approach with the reading
of science material and the application of this material at the
elementary level.
References
Guthrie, J.T. 1984. Research. Journal of Reading 27
(5): 478-80.
Palincsar, A. S., and Brown, A. L. 1984. Reciprocal teaching
of comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities.
Cognition and Instruction 2 (Sp): 117-75.
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