The effects of using cognitive strategies on children’s reading comprehension

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What were the strategies used in this study?

The reciprocal teaching approach comprised four strategies:

Predicting
Clarifying
Questioning
Summarising.

The characteristics of each strategy were as follows:

Prediction

encouraged pupils to think about what they already knew about a subject, and invited them to infer knowledge; and
was practised by writing the title of a text on the blackboard and asking pupils to make guesses about what the text would be.

Clarification

gave pupils the opportunity to ensure they had understood the text; and
usually involved pupils working in pairs. They looked for unfamiliar words or concepts and tried to find out what they meant; if they couldn’t find out, they would ask for help from their classmates or the teacher.

Questioning

prompted the pupils to consider the main points of the text, rather than focusing on details;
required pupils to make questions for which the answers were very short, and could be found in one sentence in the text. These questions were called minor or small questions, or questions about details. The children were then asked to construct questions for which the answers came from several paragraphs; these questions were called major or main point questions; and
used all interrogatives and involved practising different kinds of questions. The teacher and pupils discussed the differences between the answers to various kinds of questions.

Summarising

‘pushed’ pupils to focus on the central parts of a text;
required children to create a suitable headline for a short text. In addition, longer texts had to be shortened to a limited number of sentences; and
allowed pupils to identify and compare the main points of the text.

These strategies all served the dual purpose of fostering comprehension and monitoring comprehension. In addition to the four comprehension strategies, the other main feature of reciprocal teaching, which gives the method its name, is dialogue between the teacher and the pupils. The reciprocal method was designed to help students who can decode, but who have difficulty comprehending text.

To encourage pupils to use these strategies, ‘Rules of a good reader’ were placed on the classroom wall:

Think first what you already know about a subject (prediction)
If there are words you don’t know, find out what they mean (clarification)
Formulate main point questions about the text (questioning)
After reading, think what it was about and what were the main points (summarising)

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Research Home Themes \| Find digests \| About the digests resources glossary researchers contact TRIPS Introduction How did the pupils benefit? What were the strategies used in this study? What does this reveal about teaching reading comprehension? How was this study carried out? Implications Where can I find out more? Send us your feedback Collated digests To find out more about collated digests click here Get Word Reader The effects of using cognitive strategies on children’s reading comprehension This digest found in English Send to a friend Word doc 60KB Printer friendly Collate for later What were the strategies used in this study? The reciprocal teaching approach comprised four strategies: Predicting Clarifying Questioning Summarising. The characteristics of each strategy were as follows: Prediction encouraged pupils to think about what they already knew about a subject, and invited them to infer knowledge; and was practised by writing the title of a text on the blackboard and asking pupils to make guesses about what the text would be. Clarification gave pupils the opportunity to ensure they had understood the text; and usually involved pupils working in pairs. They looked for unfamiliar words or concepts and tried to find out what they meant; if they couldn’t find out, they would ask for help from their classmates or the teacher. Questioning prompted the pupils to consider the main points of the text, rather than focusing on details; required pupils to make questions for which the answers were very short, and could be found in one sentence in the text. These questions were called minor or small questions, or questions about details. The children were then asked to construct questions for which the answers came from several paragraphs; these questions were called major or main point questions; and used all interrogatives and involved practising different kinds of questions. The teacher and pupils discussed the differences between the answers to various kinds of questions. Summarising ‘pushed’ pupils to focus on the central parts of a text; required children to create a suitable headline for a short text. In addition, longer texts had to be shortened to a limited number of sentences; and allowed pupils to identify and compare the main points of the text. These strategies all served the dual purpose of fostering comprehension and monitoring comprehension. In addition to the four comprehension strategies, the other main feature of reciprocal teaching, which gives the method its name, is dialogue between the teacher and the pupils. The reciprocal method was designed to help students who can decode, but who have difficulty comprehending text. To encourage pupils to use these strategies, ‘Rules of a good reader’ were placed on the classroom wall: Think first what you already know about a subject (prediction) If there are words you don’t know, find out what they mean (clarification) Formulate main point questions about the text (questioning) After reading, think what it was about and what were the main points (summarising)