Teacher Reflection
The experimentation that I did with my students this year overall was very exciting to observe, but frustrating as well at times. It has always been evident to me that many children have a hard time interacting with text. I remember myself having a difficult time in school because I couldn't understand what I was reading. This was actually the catalyst to my problem and hypothesis and I wanted to learn what to do to help out my struggling readers. When I learned about the reciprocal teaching method, it sounded like something beneficial to teach my students.
I was originally concerned because I am in a position where I am responsible for reaching a variety of learning levels and I realized that just experimenting with my struggling readers would be too difficult to do. I was actually amazed at how the strategies benefited every learning style, to some capacity. It cannot be implied that each strategy benefited everyone - no strategy is an "easy fit" for all students. I will say though that for the majority of my students they learned to think clearer, pay attention more to dialogue and the author's use of language, and be more precise in their thought process. This was exciting to observe, especially in the cooperative group discussions.
I learned that the processes of clarification and question generation need to be taught over an extensive period of time for more effective comprehension to occur. When my students actually started to demonstrate their understanding of each, it was quite exciting to witness. One group of girls stands out specifically with the clarification process. I never saw a group so excited because together they had "figured out" where they thought the plot of The Westing Game was going. When asked to provide support for their thoughts, they listed several situations that showed that they had clarified clearly and were able to use this knowledge to predict where the story was leading. Another example was when one of my students came up to me after an assignment the night before when they were assigned a piece of expository text on Rome and asked to fill in the nonfiction graphic organizer. I have been continually modeling and reviewing the way to create better reflection questions, with lots of difficulty. This student came up to me right before class started and very enthusiastically told me she had created two examples of "3 point" questions (this means that they are significant to the plot and are inferential). Excitedly she showed me the questions; they were the best examples I had seen in a while and was so proud of her - but not nearly as proud as she was of herself. To me, these instances validate the intervention more than any quantitative data could.
There are a few important aspects that I would change for future use. The first would be that more time needs to be spent on just clarification. In my mind's eye this is the area of greatest weakness, and is the building block for all comprehension. Also it was frustrating trying to get across to the students the way to create better reflective questions. I believe more modeling and practice need to be done with this strategy, especially in narrative text.
The most beneficial component to this experimentation is the realization that I will continue the integration of comprehension strategies within my curriculum and advocate for others to do the same. It is crucial that it not stop with this year; only with constant practice and use will these strategies truly become metacognitve and help develop the students into more successful readers.