You are here

UCF Digital Collections ยป ETD Collection

THE EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS' COMPREHENSION OF A SEVENTH GRADE LIFE SCIENCE TEXT

Download pdf | Full Screen View

Date Issued:
2007
Abstract/Description:
This action research study was conducted with 7th grade life science students at a public middle school in central Florida. The author used Reciprocal Teaching (RT) as described by Annemarie Palincsar and Anne Brown (1984) to examine changes in student comprehension when reading their life science textbook and changes in how the students used the predicting, questioning, and summarizing strategies. The RT strategies ask students to employ 4 strategies: predict what they will read, generate questions about what was read, clarify any ideas that were not understood in the reading, and summarize the main idea of the reading. Students were given a pre and post reading comprehension test, they completed reading response worksheets to record their predictions, questions, clarifications, and summaries. Students were explicitly taught the 4 strategies prior to using them and the strategies were reinforced through teacher modeling (using think aloud teaching to show students how to use the strategies) and expert scaffolding (giving students the support needed while using the strategies). The teacher-researcher also examined if the students showed change in their level of proficiency when using the strategies after they had been taught them. Analysis of data revealed that student comprehension did increase after being taught the four reading strategies. Data also showed that students became increasingly more proficient when using the strategies as the study progressed. Data analysis also uncovered the unexpected pattern of increased student participation during whole-class and reading group discussions. Further research is needed to examine the effects of teaching highly proficient students specific reading strategies and to see how the explicit instruction of reading strategies affects student participation and achievement during inquiry-based laboratory investigations.
Title: THE EFFECTS OF RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS' COMPREHENSION OF A SEVENTH GRADE LIFE SCIENCE TEXT.
33 views
16 downloads
Name(s): Bess, Brooke, Author
Jeanpierre, Bobby, Committee Chair
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2007
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: This action research study was conducted with 7th grade life science students at a public middle school in central Florida. The author used Reciprocal Teaching (RT) as described by Annemarie Palincsar and Anne Brown (1984) to examine changes in student comprehension when reading their life science textbook and changes in how the students used the predicting, questioning, and summarizing strategies. The RT strategies ask students to employ 4 strategies: predict what they will read, generate questions about what was read, clarify any ideas that were not understood in the reading, and summarize the main idea of the reading. Students were given a pre and post reading comprehension test, they completed reading response worksheets to record their predictions, questions, clarifications, and summaries. Students were explicitly taught the 4 strategies prior to using them and the strategies were reinforced through teacher modeling (using think aloud teaching to show students how to use the strategies) and expert scaffolding (giving students the support needed while using the strategies). The teacher-researcher also examined if the students showed change in their level of proficiency when using the strategies after they had been taught them. Analysis of data revealed that student comprehension did increase after being taught the four reading strategies. Data also showed that students became increasingly more proficient when using the strategies as the study progressed. Data analysis also uncovered the unexpected pattern of increased student participation during whole-class and reading group discussions. Further research is needed to examine the effects of teaching highly proficient students specific reading strategies and to see how the explicit instruction of reading strategies affects student participation and achievement during inquiry-based laboratory investigations.
Identifier: CFE0001669 (IID), ucf:47209 (fedora)
Note(s): 2007-05-01
M.Ed.
Education, Department of Teaching and Learning Principles
Masters
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): reciprocal teaching
secondary science instruction
reading comprehension
reading in content areas
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001669
Restrictions on Access: public
Host Institution: UCF

In Collections