Literacy strategies: Reciprocal teaching

What is Reciprocal teaching?

Reciprocal teaching combines guided reading strategies with student-led discussions. In small groups, students take on roles, each focusing on one of the four key comprehension strategies, and take it in turn to lead the discussion. The four roles are:

• Predicting – What do we think will happen next?
• Clarifying – What words or ideas don’t we understand?
• Questioning – What questions do we have about the text?
• Summarising – What is the main idea?

The discussions generated from these roles help students actively think about what they are reading, and learn from each other as they do it.

Reciprocal teaching is grounded in research and theory, including Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Bruner’s scaffolding. It helps bridge the gap between decoding and comprehending text.

This strategy:

• Makes comprehension visible and teachable
• Encourages active reading and critical thinking
• Supports vocabulary development and subject knowledge
• Builds student confidence and independence
• Helps prepare students for writing by organising their thoughts clearly 

More about the roles

Predictor
This role helps students to make informed predictions/guesses about the text before reading:

• Look at the title, headings, or illustrations
• Use background knowledge to make connections.
• Revisit predictions after reading to confirm or revise them

Clarifier

This role supports students to stop and think about what they are reading, and clarify any questions they might have:

• Identify tricky words or confusing ideas
• Use clues in the text, prior knowledge, or tools like dictionaries
• Encourage discussion if anyone’s confused—this builds confidence

Questioner

This role teaches students to ask meaningful questions:

• Use literal, inferential, and evaluative questions
• Ask things like: “What did the author mean?” or “Why do you think this happened?”
• Questioning helps students engage more deeply with the text

Summariser

This role guides students in identifying the big ideas:

• Focus on key points, not every detail
• Practice summarising paragraphs, then full sections
• Use this skill to prepare for writing tasks or discussions

Starting Reciprocal teaching

Once students are familiar with the strategies, it’s time to put them into practice. Here’s how to structure a session:

• Choose a suitable text - a shorter text is useful to start with, or a longer text broken into smaller sections
• Assign roles - each student takes on one role: Predictor, Clarifier, Questioner, or Summariser and rotate these regularly
• Read a section together - this could be a paragraph, page, or section
• Discuss using the four strategies - the student with the assigned role leads that part of the conversation
• Encourage active participation - students are invited to build on each other’s ideas and support each other’s understanding.
   

Gradual release of responsibility

Start by leading the discussions yourself. Once students are ready, let them take the lead, one strategy at a time. Eventually, students will:

• lead full sessions, where the different roles, questions, strategies for summary are modelled across different types of texts
• use all four strategies independently, working through the different roles so students become more familiar
• over time, begin to integrate the strategies into any reading. The teacher role becomes more observational—providing feedback, support, and guidance as needed
   

Key tips

• Start simple – practice each strategy independently
• Use short texts or shorter sections of texts. Longer texts and/or sections can be introduced over time
• Model the strategies – this includes going back to modelling strategies even once students have taken on more responsibility
• Listen and observe – use these observations to guide next steps

References

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Palinscar, A.S. (2013). Reciprocal Teaching. In J. Hattie and E.M. Anderson (Eds.), International Guide to Student Achievement. (pp. 369-371). Taylor and Francis. 

Palinscar, A.S. and Brown, A.L. (Spring, 1984). Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities. Cognition and Instruction. Vol. 1, No. 2. pp. 117-175.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Information adapted from The Department of Eduation Literacy Toolkit