Reciprocal Teaching Roles
Gateway High School, California

Topic: Adolescent Literacy Practice: Comprehension Strategies

To prepare her students to improve their reading comprehension, teacher Suzanne Herko uses this handout to train her students in Reciprocal Teaching roles.

Reciprocal Teaching Roles—Gateway High School, California

Reciprocal Teaching
What? It is a method to help our reading comprehension. Why? • It models & reminds us of what we should do as good readers all the time. • It allows us to draw upon our strengths together as we make sense of difficult text. How? • In groups of 3-4, we take turns assuming four different roles. These four roles imitate what we do as good readers. • We read a short section of text (as short as 1 paragraph to as long as ½ a page) and complete our roles. • Any member of the group can answer the “Questioner’s” question. • We rotate roles for the next section of text and continue.

Reciprocal Teaching Roles—Gateway High School, California

What are the roles? Discussion Leader: Reads the paragraph and keeps the discussion of the paragraph on task. Summarizer: Questioner: Predictor: Picks out the main points of the paragraph and puts them in his/her own words. Asks a question to the group that asks for factual recall. Makes a hypothesis of what might happen next or how a character, plot, or setting might change.

What are some sample statements/questions for the different roles? Role Summarizer Questioner Sample Statement/Question stems. . . I think the main idea is. . . In this section. . . . Who is. . . ? Where did. . . .happen? Why did. . . .? Where is this taking place? Maybe we’ll learn that character X. . . . Perhaps . . . will happen next. I predict the author will. . .


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