Abstract
This article reports the results of a twelve-week intervention study in which 30 students in the third grade in a socially disadvantaged neighbourhood received training in a reciprocal teaching reading programme twice a week. Previously, (a) no study of the effects of reciprocal teaching had been conducted in a Swedish context under the conditions of larger groups in grade 3 or (b) in a socially disadvantaged neighbourhood. In the present study, the students were instructed in ‘text talk’ in large groups, with 15 participants in each group. Each session lasted 15 to 20 minutes. Some text talks were video recorded. The video recordings were analysed qualitatively. The students’ reading comprehension was tested before the intervention, immediately after completing the intervention, and three months after completing the intervention. The results presented suggest that the students’ reading comprehension significantly increased. In the conclusion, the study indicates that reciprocal teaching had a positive effect on students in grade 3 in a Swedish context; however, uncontrolled intervening variables cannot be ruled out.
Highlights
When Swedish students enter the third grade, they are exposed to national testing and assessment for the first time, and they are required to read on the lines, and to read between and beyond them
A key aspect of reciprocal teaching is that the students get to lead the text talk and initiate questions
The study shows that reciprocal teaching can be taught successfully under large-group conditions in a Swedish context with students in grade 3
Summary
When Swedish students enter the third grade, they are exposed to national testing and assessment for the first time, and they are required to read on the lines, and to read between and beyond them. Research has demonstrated that Swedish teachers have the necessary tools to teach students how to read on the lines but lack sufficient tools to teach them to ‘read to learn’, i.e., reading with comprehension (Lundberg & Reichenberg, 2013). Little attention has been paid to how schools can reduce the negative effect that living in a socially disadvantaged neighbourhood has on reading comprehension. Education research has shown that (a) group-based explicit structured designs for reading instruction can scaffold students who struggle with reading comprehension, and that (b) an important ingredient of efficiently teaching comprehension strategies is professional development for teachers (Block & Duffy, 2008). We believe that the reading programme reciprocal teaching (RT) can be used to successfully improve students’ reading comprehension in a socially disadvantaged neighbourhood. We rest upon the ‘Vygotskian’ idea that comprehension is built through social interaction (Vygotsky, 1978)
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