Research has shown one of the best ways to teach comprehension skills is using Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar and Brown 1984).

The children need to be taught each of the four roles and will need to practise using the skills using different texts. The teacher should encourage the pupils to act as reading detectives; their mission is to carry out each specific job. The children will need lots of support in doing this. The aim is to work towards completing group comprehension tasks where each person carries out a specific role.

Summariser

Retell the main points

Recap, sum up, go over the important parts and give a synopsis

Summarising

• In the beginning…
• This is a story about…
• I retell all the important bits
• The most important events are..

So far the story has…

Look out for:

• The main characters
• Key points
• Important information
• Facts