The Process, Pitfalls and Benefits of Implementing a Reciprocal Teaching Intervention to Improve the Reading Comprehension of a Group of Year 6 Pupils

Abstract

The comprehension skills of junior-age children are not familiar territory for many educational psychologists. While many of the profession are associated with interventions to improve children's word-attack skills, whether reading or spelling, interventions to improve comprehension skills are little written about. This paper describes the Reciprocal Teaching Method (Palincsar, 1982; Palincsar & Brown, 1984) that has been positively evaluated as a means of developing children's comprehension skills. Its theoretical underpinnings are described and critiqued. The literature on comprehension skills training methods is surveyed and Reciprocal Teaching is critiqued against other research. The author describes her use of this intervention within the framework of the Literacy Hour to promote the use of strategies that allow children to enhance their inferential understanding at the text level, at the sentence level and at the individual word level. The approach also promotes children's independence by allowing them to follow the teacher's example and gradually adopt the teacher's role and style of questioning. Literature on consultation is also drawn on to describe the process of putting this intervention into place. The implications for the educational psychologist as an agent of change or consultant are discussed, as well as the implications for future research. This paper attempts to help the practitioner wishing to implement an intervention using the Reciprocal Teaching method to consider the processes, the potential pitfalls and the benefits of such an intervention.