Implementation of Reciprocal Teaching Strategies: Improving Reading Skills and Academic Performance of Secondary Students

Abstract

Proficiency in reading comprehension is very important especially for secondary English language students. In this mixed methods study, the research proven methodological intervention “reciprocal teaching” is introduced to improve the reading skills and academic performance of 30 secondary students of grade 11.  Reciprocal teaching is a scaffold dialogue technique that is built upon four strategies which competent readers use to understand text namely predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing. The four strategies of reciprocal teaching were each part of the four interrelated cycles that comprised the related activities implemented during the intervention. A general plan inclusive of activities, teaching resources, observation schedules, checklists and assessments was constructed and used for data collection. When the scores of pre and post assessments were compared using paired samples t test, they showed a significant amount of improvement in grades of students as well as their ability to effectively understand the text. The outcomes proved reciprocal teaching to be a significant technique for improving reading comprehension skills and academic performance. In addition, the implication for teachers who teach reading comprehension is that through modeling and implementation of the reciprocal strategies like predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarizing they can enhance the academic performance of students.