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groups can promote a successful and safe learning environment with the implementation of an idea that it is okay to not understand every word, phrase, or idea presented in the text. As students share their individual limits of
comprehension, a teaching moment is naturally provided to better the understanding of information by the teacher and support all students’ reading knowledge.
Questioning information that is presented in literature helps to promote young readers’ comprehension strategies. It is important for students to understand what they are reading and why they are reading the presented materials. This is similarly emphasized in clarifying. Questioning works to deepen students’ understanding and engage the reader resulting in them becoming an active reader rather than a passive reader. As students read the information presented in texts, they are encouraged to develop knowledgeable questions to further their exploration of the text. As these knowledgeable questions are developed, a contribution towards the FAB Four rules is acknowledged and developed to support questioning of texts.
Finally, summarizing what has been read encourages young readers to identify and concentrate on the main idea(s) that were presented in the text. Summarizing also encourages students to discover details that help support the main idea that comes from the text. One method to remind students of the importance of summarizing main ideas is Summarizing Sam who is a snake. This summarizing character likes to wrap himself around the main ideas that are presented within a text and squeeze out the most important information of these ideas. Other strategies that can be utilized when working with summarizing literature in discussion groups would be recording 2 “aha!” ideas and recording 2 “huh?” ideas, recording thoughts and what was learned in learning logs to reflect on, Sticky Note responses, and Turn & Talk. Although many of these strategies are different, the overall goal is for the teacher to introduce and teach students how to use summarizing strategies such as Somebody Wanted But So Then , SAAC, or 5 W’s and an H. See the following examples:
● Somebody: Who is the story about?
● Wanted: What does the main character want?
● ButWhat problem did the main character encounter?
● So: How does the main character solve the problem?
● Then:How does the story end?
SAAC
● State: the name of the article, book, or story
● Assign: the name of the author
● Action: what the author is doing
● Complete: complete the summary with keywords and important details
● Who is the story about?
● What did they do?
● When did the action take place?
● Where did the story happen?
● Why did the main character do what they did?
● How did the main character do what they did?
The encouragement of reciprocal teaching can be used in multiple types of literature, including both fiction and nonfiction pieces of literature, as well as being used at any grade level. As elementary teachers use the reciprocal teaching strategies, it has been noted that students’ reading levels can increase by one to two grade levels, as well as increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge and levels of comprehension (Stricklin, 2011, p. 624). As the process of reciprocal teaching is used, young readers can work together to further the resources used to process textual information by promoting the use of reading accessories that support reading development.
Through personal exploration in the implementation of the FAB Four in a 3rd grade setting, there was improved comprehension among students, as well as students displaying more engagement within discussion groups and an emphasis of higher-order thinking when looking at different texts. As students shared information, they demonstrated a desire to “dig-deeper” in the texts and gain further knowledge as they worked through the FAB Four rule. Specific examples that were witnessed are decoding unknown words and discovering their meaning, identifying unknown information as learning opportunities, and becoming more independent readers as students became more familiar with the FAB four. As the process of reciprocal teaching is used and the FAB four rule was implemented, young readers discovered the ability to work together and with the teacher to further their knowledge to process textual information by promoting the use of instructional strategies that support reading development in literature discussion groups.
Kimbell-Lopez, K. (2003). Just think of the possibilities: Formats for reading instruction
in the elementary classroom. Reading Online, 6(6), 1-23
Brown, A. L., & Palincsar, A. S. (1989). Guided, cooperative learning and individual knowledge
acquisition. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor
of Robert Glaser (pp. 393-451). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rodli, M. & Prastyo, H. (2017). Applying reciprocal method in teaching reading. Studies in
Stricklin, K. (2011). Hands-on reciprocal teaching: A comprehension technique. The Reading
PICTURE REQUESTED
Lauren Floyd received a Bachelor of Science in Education - Elementary Education from Missouri State University in December 2020. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Science Degree in Education - Literacy at Missouri State University. As a struggling reader throughout elementary school, Floyd aspires to assist and motivate other struggling readers.
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