Reciprocal Teaching with Fluency

There are so many wonderful programs and strategies to help students improve their reading skills.  The issue that I run into is how to fit all the components of effective reading instruction into each class: decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency.  This is my third year doing The Six-Minute Solution, and I have seen students’ fluency rates dramatically increase.  Building fluency (accuracy, pace, and expression) is supposed to positively affect comprehension, but I began to wonder if the students were really understanding the text more, or if they were just focused on saying the words as quickly as they possibly could, so I decided to add in Reciprocal Teaching (summarize, question, clarify, predict) to our fluency practice.  I use this comprehension strategy for various texts in the classroom anyway, but adding it to our daily routine has been incredibly valuable, and it only takes a couple minutes.  Here is how I have adapted our fluency practice to include comprehension: 

Monday Fluency:  Teacher says, “Draw a line that divides your fluency passage in half.  You will have 90 seconds to read that first half of the passage to yourself.  Mark any words you are unsure of and raise your hand when you are done, so we can help you pronounce the words.”

Students read and ask for clarification of words.

Teacher says, “Now read the first half of the passage with your partner, if you get to the halfway mark, start from the beginning again, add your score up, and graph it.”

Monday Reciprocal Teaching:  Predict--After you have read the first section of the passage, make a prediction about what the last section will be about.

Teacher says, “When you are done raise your hand, read your prediction to us, and we will check it off.”

Tuesday Fluency:  Teacher says, “Read your prediction out loud to your partner.”  Now read the last half of the passage.  You will have 90 seconds to read the last half of the passage to yourself.  Mark any words that you are unsure of and raise your hand when you are done, so we can help you pronounce the words.”

Students read and ask for clarification of words.

Teacher says, “Now read the last half of the passage with your partner, if you get to the end, start from the beginning again, add your score up, and graph it.”

Tuesday Reciprocal Teaching:  Question--Ask 1 literal question (point to it) and 1 inferential question (in your mind).

Teacher says, “When you are done raise your hand, read your questions to us, and we will check it off.”

Wednesday Fluency:  Students read entire passage with their partner, but they get two minutes on the timer instead of one.  Students graph their CWPM.

Wednesday Reciprocal Teaching: Clarify—Look for one thing you don’t understand and try to figure it out. 

Teacher says, “When you are done raise your hand, read your clarification to us, and we will check it off.”

Thursday Fluency: Students read with their partner for one minute and graph their CWPM.

Thursday Reciprocal Teaching: Summarize—Decide what information is important and state it clearly:  Who, What, When, Where, Why.  

Teacher says, “When you are done raise your hand, read your summary to us, and we will check it off.”

Friday Fluency:  Read your passage silently for one minute and graph your CWPM.  Please let me know, did you read slower or faster than when you read it out loud? 

Friday Reciprocal Teaching:  Put your important information from Thursday into one complete sentence.  If you include all of the important information in fewer than 25 words receive bonus points!  Teacher says, “When you are done raise your hand, read your summary to us, and we will check it off.”

The benefits of this practice are plentiful.  First of all, students have said that they really understand the passage at the end of the week, and this is serving to increase their knowledge base; the passages cover a wide variety of interesting subjects.  Also, it is making students more and more familiar with these comprehension strategies, so we can easily use them on any text, and finally, this is an easy item for teachers to grade especially if you have students read it to you each day and give them a check mark.  At the end of the week, simply count the check marks!

I have posted a student sample that went with a passage on Helen Keller and a blank template for your use.  Enjoy!