The ManicaPost
Freedom Mutanda Education Correspondent
From the ECD level, reading comprehension is an integral part of the teaching and learning of English; for its importance to the learning of English, curriculum planners and assessors have placed reading comprehension as one of the key objectives at Ordinary Level which warrants 40 percent of the total marks.
Against such a background, it is pertinent to look at some of the strategies used by teachers of English the world over as they prepare learners for the examination as well as fostering a lifelong skill for the learner. One of the strategies of reading comprehension is known as reciprocal reading and it is in Australia and New Zealand that it had its genesis according to Palinsca, A et al (1984).
Extensive reading has always been identified as the key determinant to enabling a learner to master reading skills thereby developing his/her vocabulary without breaking much of a sweat. It is important, however, to note that a teacher should act as a model for the learner to take after.
Sadly, with the advent of social media, some teachers of English have abandoned the notion of reading wildly so much that if one was to ask them when was the last time they thumbed through the pages of a magazine, newspaper or paperback, one will be shocked to hear that it was ages ago.
It is regarded as reciprocal reading as the teacher gradually gives away more control to the learner as he/she develops independence at individual, pair or group level. A teacher begins the reading regime but allows learners to take control of the reading for them to grasp the requirements of each particular reading activity.
Reciprocal teaching, therefore, refers to an instructional activity whereby learners become the teacher in small group reading sessions and the teacher acts as a model in that unique set-up. This methodology encourages pupils to think about their very own thought processes during reading and also helps learners to be actively involved in reading comprehension with the result that it encourages them to ask questions during the reading practice.
Expert modelling and support can be equated to the actions of a father who is teaching his son to ride a bicycle. Firstly, he shows his son how cycling is done and then allows the young man to ride the bicycle and holds on to the carrier as he cycles and he runs alongside the rider. As the bicycle gathers speed, the father keeps holding on to the bike; the young man is confident his father is there for him. Finally, the father releases the rider to be on his own; he won’t fall because he has been given control of riding the bicycle gradually. So, it is with reading; pupils are given control of the reading process gradually and they love it when they master concepts related to reading.
Reading competence is an art that has to be mastered over time.
A teacher supports learners in developing reading stratagems before, during and after the reading lesson. What that means is that a teacher has to plan his/her lesson well in advance and every reading lesson is a new one for his/her and his/her pupils. By so doing, learners look forward to her lesson every other day. Encouraging learners to monitor their own reading is enough motivation to bring about reading competence.
Teaching strategies for reciprocal
comprehension
1. Predicting is a key word for the teacher to impart to his learners before a reading session. Teachers should teach learners to anticipate what is going to happen next. They should use information to envisage what will happen next and they do that through accommodating it within their previous knowledge and use it to make logical forecasts before or during reading.
For example, if the title of the reading passage is, ‘’Kidnapped,’’ the learner’s prior knowledge of forced abduction in her wide reading should make her predict that the story is about someone who was taken away without his consent and there could be a ransom in the mix. Thus, titles, illustrations, subheadings and maps help learners to predict what is in the story.
Prediction is used to set a purpose for reading. Learners have to know that they don’t just read a story without an underlying reason for doing so. It is prudent for the teacher to encourage her learners to interact with the text and compare with their prior learning.
2. Questioning is an age-old method of teaching popularised by the likes of the great philosopher, Socrates. Tell learners to think of a question before they embark on reading or alternatively write down the question they have to think about as they read the passage. In doing so, they read with more awareness and purpose. To illustrate, in the above passage, “Kidnapped’’ one may ask students: ‘’How was the man kidnapped?’’ Henceforth, learners read for a purpose.
Teacher asks pupils to formulate questions which are answered in the text: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Reading the text with those questions in mind helps the learner to understand the passage and makes her an active reader and not a passive reader
3. Identifying barriers to reading is an important principle of reciprocal reading. Teachers should encourage their learners to monitor their own comprehension as they encounter barriers to comprehension such as vocabulary. Here is an opportunity for the teacher to model with pupils how they can figure out a difficult word they have encountered in a passage. It may mean re-reading the word and looking for parts of the word they know and they read on and look for context clues to arrive at the meaning of the word as they read the rest of the sentence.
4. Visualisation is when learners have images of what is happening in a passage. Encourage students to translate their literal understanding of a text into pictorial form through the creation of a mental image.
“He hobbled to his immaculate Mercedes- Benz and settled comfortably in the rear seat.”
Mark “hobbled” and “rear” in that sentence. If you visualise the man walking with difficulty, in your mind you will see a man limping and the rear seat should give you a picture of the back seat as the opposite of front.
Teachers should introduce character studies, charts, timelines, graphs or illustrations in their teaching of reading comprehension. These are known as visual or graphic organisers. Now, you can see the nexus between literature and language.
Teaching using visuals can be done from infant level up to “O” and “A” Level.
5. It is vital for teachers of English to model students by supporting them to construct summary statements based on their reading. Our model passage entitled ,‘’Kidnapped’’, may have summary statements such as (a) John escaped from the kidnappers through the following means, (b) the kidnappers used what methods to track John, (c) How did the police close in on the kidnappers?
Successful reading entails the pupils’ engaging fully with the text, their gleaning of important information and conversion of this knowledge into another form.
In summary, therefore, the reciprocal teaching strategies have certain words which learners must practise as they go about group reading. Predicting is a form of guessing. Many learners enjoy the guessing game but it goes beyond guessing as readers can make use of textual evidence from the text along their prior knowledge to make informed predictions.
The bottom line is: Practice! Practice! Practice! Learners can be leaders in the concept of reading comprehension while the teachers take on the role of being models. Learners are thus able to apply the four strategies in an authentic literacy environment where they support each other to predict, question, clarify and summarise texts that they encounter on a daily basis.
