Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

Reciprocal Teaching procedures and principles:

two teachers’ developing understanding
Jennifer R. Seymoura,*, Helena P. Osanab
a
University of Wisconsin-Madison, 409 North Broad Street, Elkhorn, WI 53121, USA
b
Department of Education LB-579, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd., Montreal, Que., Canada H3G1M8

Received 30 August 2001; received in revised form 8 October 2002; accepted 4 November 2002

Abstract

The effectiveness of Reciprocal Teaching, a reading comprehension instructional technique, has been repeatedly
demonstrated. According to Brown and Campione (Innovations in Learning, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 289–325,
1996) ‘‘lethal mutations’’ are abundant because of teachers’ focus on how to do the procedures of Reciprocal Teaching
and lack of understanding of the learning principles upon which the method is based. This investigation reports
conceptual growth and the misinterpretations of the procedures and learning principles that two Schools for Thought
teachers held as they developed their understanding across training sessions. We claim that studying the development of
teacher thinking can be particularly useful to those revamping teacher education programs.
r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Reciprocal Teaching; Teacher education; Reading comprehension; Reading strategies; Professional development;
Pedagogical content knowledge

Reciprocal Teaching is a researcher-developed implemented by teachers as a pre-set collection

instructional technique designed by Palincsar and of procedures, without an understanding of why
Brown (1984) to promote reading comprehension the techniques are effective. The authors discussed
abilities in students. The effectiveness of Recipro- how teachers’ focus on procedures can lead to
cal Teaching has been repeatedly demonstrated ‘‘lethal mutations’’ (Lamon et al., 1996) of the
when the technique is correctly implemented under original Reciprocal Teaching method, which en-
the close supervision of experts (Lysynchuk, tails teachers having not developed accurate
Pressley, & Vye, 1990; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; conceptions of the relevant learning principles or
Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). Without such making conscious choices to adapt and change
monitoring, however, success is not always a original instructional procedures (Barak Rosen-
given. Recently, Brown and Campione (1996) shine, July 28, 1998, pers. comm.). Both are lethal
lamented that Reciprocal Teaching is often in that they do not produce the reading compre-
hension gains that Palincsar and Brown (1984),
and replications of their work (Lysynchuk et al.,
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-262-723-8548.
1990), have shown are possible.
E-mail addresses: jrseymour@[Link] In the area of reading instruction, and specifi-
(J.R. Seymour), osana@[Link] (H.P. Osana). cally with respect to Reciprocal Teaching, more

0742-051X/03/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0742-051X(03)00018-0
326 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

research is needed to understand the developing 1.1. Knowledge and beliefs about reading
conceptions of teachers who are learning how to comprehension strategy instruction
implement the technique. As evidenced by a
growing body of literature (Calderhead, 1996; Palincsar, Stevens, and Gavelek (1989) and
Carpenter, 1988; Shuell, 1996), incorporating Duffy (1993a) attempted to address the issue of
teachers’ prior and developing understandings into teacher beliefs with regard to their respective
professional development endeavors is essential, programs for implementing reading comprehen-
mainly because one of the most important sion instruction. Despite notable differences in
instigators of teachers’ actions are the beliefs they their approaches, both Palincsar and Duffy placed
hold about their discipline and student learning the teacher at the center of his or her own
(Calderhead, 1996; Strauss, 1993; Thompson, professional development. In their development
1992). This case study was an effort to begin programs, the authors focused on the teachers’
investigating, from a developmental perspective, self-confidence as well as the beliefs they held
the conceptions and beliefs of two teachers as they about themselves as teachers in the context of
refined their understandings of the fundamental reading instruction.
principles and techniques of Reciprocal Teaching Our focus in this investigation, however, is on
during a 6-week training intervention. The inter- the teachers’ cognitions of Reciprocal Teaching
vention consisted of a series of interactive work- and on the ways in which their beliefs may affect
shops for the teachers that aimed to link their their practice. A study by Marks et al. (1993)
developing conceptions to their classroom prac- offers insights into teachers’ thinking about
tice. Before, midway, and after the series of four Reciprocal Teaching. The authors examined three
training sessions, we conducted clinical interviews teachers who had incorporated ‘‘think-pair-share’’
and naturalistic observations that captured the and ‘‘question-response cue’’ forms of strategy
teachers’ perspectives of their own developing instruction into Reciprocal Teaching sessions.
understanding of the procedures and principles Marks et al. hypothesized that such more ‘‘work-
of Reciprocal Teaching. able’’ forms of Reciprocal Teaching would facil-
itate implementation of the techniques involved.
Instead, the authors found that the teachers were
1. Theoretical framework engaging in ‘‘lethal mutations’’; that is, they were
altering Reciprocal Teaching in ways that did not
In the wake of the process-product approach to reflect the learning principles on which it is based.
the study of teacher effectiveness (Koehler & The primary goal of the teachers in the Marks et al.
Grouws, 1992), researchers have been concentrat- study was to promote students’ interest and
ing on examining the beliefs and decision-making engagement in reading. While a worthwhile goal
processes of expert and novice teachers. The in itself, the teachers were not implementing the
current zeitgeist in teacher development revolves Reciprocal Teaching objectives of improving
around viewing teachers themselves as thinking, students’ reading comprehension strategies. In
active problem solvers, who use their beliefs and addition, comprehension monitoring was not
knowledge to make important decisions in the cited as a goal by any of the three teachers in the
classroom (Carpenter, 1988; Dougherty, 1990; Marks et al. (1993) study. One teacher commented
Fennema & Franke, 1992; National Research that even if she knew that the technique had no
Council, NRC, 1999). The description of the effect on her students’ reading comprehension
theoretical framework will briefly review the ability, she would still use it because she believed
literature on teachers’ beliefs about reading that her version of Reciprocal Teaching gave her
comprehension strategy instruction and will move students greater enthusiasm about reading and
to a description of the procedures and principles academics.
involved in Reciprocal Teaching that are salient to Teacher departures from the learning principles
our data collection and analysis. of Reciprocal Teaching was also the focus of other
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 327

investigations. For example, Mosenthal, Schwartz 1.2. Reciprocal Teaching

and MacIssac (1992) found that preservice tea-
chers believed that the strategies must proceed in a In this section, we highlight the important
set order of ‘‘steps’’ during every session, and that aspects of the procedures and principles of
this misconception was very resistant to change. Reciprocal Teaching as intended by its developers.
Similarly, the teachers expressed the belief that For more detailed information, we invite the
Reciprocal Teaching was a bad idea because if reader to consult the research (Collins, Brown, &
children thought they would need to engage in all Newman, 1989; Palincsar, 1991; Palincsar &
four steps every time they read, it would make Brown, 1984).
reading even less appealing. These misunderstand-
ings are clearly hurdles that teachers need to 1.2.1. The procedures
transcend if they are to understand why and Reciprocal Teaching is carried out with a small
how Reciprocal Teaching can be effective for group of children (four to six children is typical,
improving their students’ reading comprehension but using larger groups has been successful) and a
abilities. teacher, all of whom work together to read a
The cognitive approach to studying teacher passage. A small part of the passage is read aloud
effectiveness, described above, promises to provide or silently, depending on the age and ability level
information that will assist researchers to better of the group. After the passage has been read, the
understand good teaching, and in turn to for- ‘‘learning leader’’ is responsible for helping the
mulate more effective teacher education programs small group comprehend what was read by
and interventions. Our work stands out from verbally engaging in four expert reading strategies:
previous studies in two ways. First, we hypothe- questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predict-
sized that examining teachers’ general beliefs ing (Palincsar, 1991; Palincsar & Klenk, 1992). In
is not as effective as examining their beliefs each Reciprocal Teaching session, the teacher is
about a specific instructional technique, such as the first learning leader. After the teacher models
Reciprocal Teaching. We argue that the expert strategy use, each child in turn is given the
information gleaned from domain-specific investi- responsibility of being the learning leader. The
gations, such as ours, will be of more practical teacher and other students are constantly helping
value for teacher educators than general notions the learning leader to perform the four strategies,
of teacher thinking. This is supported by but the learning leader must actually do the
teacher knowledge experts who distinguish questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predict-
between general pedagogical knowledge and ing by him or herself (Brown & Campione, 1996;
pedagogical content knowledge (Fennema et al., Palincsar, 1991; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Rosen-
1996; Grossman, 1989; Grossman & Stodolsky, shine & Meister, 1994).
1995; Shulman, 1987). Later we make some Engaging in these four strategies encourages
specific suggestions to this effect. Second, we students to monitor their own comprehension. For
claim that studying the development of teacher example, if a student is unable to summarize the
thinking in an instructional setting would be main point of a paragraph, it is likely that he or
particularly useful to those revamping teacher she did not comprehend the main point. Here, the
education programs across North America, strategy fosters comprehension because it signals
which has been the focus of activity in many to the student that he or she needs to reread to
Colleges of Education in the United States. comprehend the main point, rather than continue
By understanding the specific techniques and reading without understanding (Brown, Palincsar,
activities that are responsible for the develop- & Armbruster, 1984).
ment of important pedagogical concepts may
just be the most effective way to understand the 1.2.2. The principles
nature and course of the development of teacher Brown and Campione (1996) stressed that there
thinking. are key principles of learning and instruction that
328 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

underpin the technique of Reciprocal Teaching. performance by the teacher. The teacher’s role is
Palincsar (1991) focused on four principles in a to constantly evaluate the child’s developing skill
chapter she wrote for teachers. These principles and to teach to the upper limit of the child’s ZPD.
include cognitive apprenticeship (Collins et al., Proleptic teaching is defined as teaching in
1989), theories of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & anticipation of competence (Brown, Campione,
Ross, 1976), the zone of proximal development Ferrara, Reeve, & Palincsar, 1991). A proleptic
(ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978), and proleptic teaching teacher could be described as one who has high
(Brown & Palincsar, 1989; Palincsar, 1991). expectations and believes in his or her students’
The model of cognitive apprenticeship provides ability to meet them. Regardless of a student’s
a framework for all the activity that occurs during perceived ability or level of intelligence, the teacher
a Reciprocal Teaching session. The learning leader assumes that the student is capable and will
takes on the role of the expert who demonstrates eventually be able to accomplish the task as an
correct use of comprehension monitoring strate- expert would. In contrast, instruction that embo-
gies for other group members. Group members dies a hierarchical stepwise pattern (Gagne! , 1962,
become more proficient readers as the expert 1985) communicates to the children that all a
provides guidance when needed and controls the teacher expects is the mastery of one point in
transfer of cognitive responsibility to the students. development, which, according to Palincsar
All the instruction and expert guidance is con- (1991), is an inefficient use of instructional time.
ducted within the context of the entire task,
enabling the students to reflect on their develop-
ment in the context of the overall purposes of the 2. Method
activity.
A scaffold is a structure that supports an We used a case study methodology (Yin, 1994)
activity, mental or physical, while development to address the following questions: As they
of skill is ongoing. Scaffolding takes the form of undergo training, what are the meanings the two
hints, cues, questions, and discussion that are teachers ascribe to the four expert strategies used
designed to assist the learner to develop task- in Reciprocal Teaching (questioning, summariz-
related skills. The process of scaffolding is almost ing, clarifying, and predicting) and four of the
entirely dependent on the expert’s understanding learning principles upon which Reciprocal Teach-
of the learner’s ability and knowledge at any given ing is built (cognitive apprenticeship, scaffolding,
point (Bruer, 1993). Within the context of Re- ZPD, and proleptic teaching)? How do the
ciprocal Teaching, the learning leader benefits conceptions of the teachers change over the course
from understanding the typical developmental of training?
progression of students learning to engage in
expert reading strategies, such as summarizing. 2.1. Research site
Common scaffolds for the development of sum-
marizing are providing praise, prompting children The research site was a midwestern middle-level
to use particular words to begin their summaries, (grades 6, 7, and 8) magnet school, located in an
and even modeling part of the process for the urban environment with a population of over 63%
children to mimic. minority. Twenty-five percent of the district
Vygotsky (1978) referred to the difference population were children under 18 years old, of
between the child’s performance alone and the which 42% lived in single parent homes. Nearly
child’s performance with help from a more expert 40% lived in poverty, and the median family
person as the ZPD. The ZPD is central to the income in this district was approximately $30,000
techniques of Reciprocal Teaching. A child learn- (Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis,
ing how to summarize, for example, will not be 1996).
able to formulate an expert summary, and thus The school was involved in a full-scale imple-
will have to be scaffolded to higher levels of mentation of the integration of three instructional
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 329

programs designed and tested by cognitive scien- Rick, an African-American man, was at the end
tists (Lamon et al., 1996). The system, entitled of his second year teaching for SFT. He had
Schools for Thought (SFT, Bruer, 1993), teaches recently participated in a 1-day professional
students thinking skills as well as discipline-specific development session on Reciprocal Teaching, but
content knowledge by integrating Fostering Com- was nevertheless grateful for the opportunity to
munities of Learners (Brown & Campione, 1990), receive additional formal training. He indicated
Computer Supported Intentional Learning Envir- during the second interview that, ‘‘up to now,
onments (CSILE, Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1989), [he’d] been doing mostly trial and error’’ in his
and the Jasper Woodbury Adventure Series attempts to use Reciprocal Teaching as a techni-
(Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, que in his classroom. He was dedicated to SFT and
1997). As part of the Fostering Communities of learning more about the program.
Learners program, children conduct Reciprocal
Teaching sessions to understand the articles they 2.3. Training intervention
uncover during self-directed research activity.
Sustained small-group activity culminates in a The training intervention, created specifically
group research report and the completion of what for our study, was designed according to human
is called a ‘‘consequential task’’, evaluated by learning principles (Anderson et al., 1995; Blu-
individuals inside and outside the classroom. Thus, menfeld, Hicks, & Krajcik, 1996; Calderhead,
teachers at SFT sites possess varied levels of 1996), and was similar in structure to that
familiarity with Reciprocal Teaching, depending conducted by Palincsar and Brown (1984) in the
on prior experience and the types of in-service original Reciprocal Teaching study. As in the
professional development that is available to them. original study, the field researcher (first author)
and teachers participated in Reciprocal Teaching
2.2. Participants sessions together, and the texts used were intended
to create a setting that was conducive to cognitive
A pilot study was conducted several months apprenticeship modeling processes (Collins et al.,
before the present study began at the same site 1989). In contrast to Palincsar and Brown, the
with several teachers interested in improving their texts used in our training also presented informa-
implementation of Reciprocal Teaching. Work tion on the four procedures and four principles. To
with these teachers allowed us to approach two elicit beliefs about teaching and learning (see
language arts teachers, Evita and Rick (pseudo- Hollingsworth, 1989; Palincsar et al., 1989), the
nyms), who agreed to participate in the present teachers in this study were required to produce
study because they were interested in improving written rationales for their current and projected
their practice. Reciprocal Teaching practices (Anderson et al.,
Evita, a Caucasian woman, was nearing the end 1995; Blumenfeld et al., 1996; Shuell, 1996).
of her first year teaching at SFT. Prior to this, she In describing the training activities in the
taught language arts in a military-base school in following section, the use of the first person
Germany for several years. Although she ex- singular (I) will refer to the first author who
pressed a sense of being overwhelmed by the conducted all the training and data collection
program’s demands and the disciplinary issues of activity. Four separate training sessions were
an inner-city school, Evita was remarkably eager conducted, during which both teachers were
to learn about the SFT program. Initial conversa- present. To guide the discussion of the first session,
tions with her revealed that she talked about overheads were used that listed my background,
teaching and learning in terms of her students’ the format of the training, and an introduction to
thoughts and the learning environment she pro- the procedures and principles of Reciprocal
vided. Evita enjoyed observing her students Teaching. We began the session by watching
succeeding; she was enthusiastic when speaking videotaped clips of Reciprocal Teaching, which
of her students’ efforts, insights, and abilities. stimulated a great deal of discussion and questions
330 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

from the two teachers about the procedures students in a Reciprocal Teaching session and
involved. Following the discussion, I introduced subsequently compared the depicted scaffolding
brief definitions of each principle, as well as with their own practice. A brief discussion ensued
examples and non-examples of each, the latter of about the relationship between the ZPD and
which were presented as written vignettes of cognitive development, which had been a source
teachers either adhering to or violating the of discussion from previous training sessions and
principles. interviews.
The second training session began with a The main activity during the session focused on
Reciprocal Teaching session using a text (Appen- specifying rationales for instructional strategies,
dix A) that reviewed the procedures and the which I modeled for the teachers using my own
principles discussed in the first session. As in rationale for present and future Reciprocal Teach-
session one, more time was spent discussing the ing practice. The participants were then asked to
procedures than the principles. After the review, construct and share their own rationales to the
we discussed a graphical illustration of two group.
hypothetical students’ zones of proximal develop-
ment (Appendix B) for the skill of summarizing 2.4. Data collection
(Palincsar & Brown, 1984). In addition, a set of
examples of actual student summaries was pro- The three phases of data collection, spanning a
vided and briefly discussed at the close of the 6-week period, are outlined in Fig. 1. During
training session. Phase I, before the first two training sessions took
Training session three began with a review of place (T1 and T2), the participants were individu-
the ZPD illustration used in session two. To ally interviewed on their conceptions of procedures
promote understanding of the role scaffolding and principles (clinical interviewing techniques
plays in a cognitive apprenticeship, we spent were used; see Ginsberg, 1997). At the beginning
the remainder of the session engaging in Recipro- of each interview, the participant was asked to use
cal Teaching. Two different texts were used a node-link structure to create a graphical
(Appendix C). The first focused on cognitive representation of his or her current understanding
apprenticeship (Shuell, 1996), and the second of the four procedures and principles, all on the
text focused on scaffolding (Webb & Palincsar, same piece of paper. The participants then spent
1996). During this activity, I modeled several the remainder of the interview explaining and
different scaffolding techniques, which were elaborating their representation to the interviewer,
listed on a handout (Appendix D) that I provided responding to prepared questions as well as
for the teachers. I asked the teachers to think interviewer prompts.
about their own scaffolding techniques and be Also before the training began, the two teachers
ready to discuss their reflections at the sub- were observed in their respective classrooms
sequent training session. (Bogdan & Biklin, 1998) as they implemented
The fourth and last session of the training began Reciprocal Teaching with their students. During
with a scaffolding wrap-up. The teachers reviewed the classroom observations, the field researcher
an excerpt of dialogue of a teacher scaffolding her took detailed hand-written fieldnotes document-

PHASE I PHASE II PHASE III

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6

Activity I/O T1 T2 A1 I/O T3 A2 T4 I/O A3

Fig. 1. Data collection schedule. Interviews and Observations (I/O) were conducted before training session one (T1), after the first two
training sessions (T1, T2), and after training was completed with the fourth session (T4). Three sets of analyses were conducted, A1,
A2, and A3.
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 331

ing the teachers’ implementations of Reciprocal interpretation and creation of pattern codes by
Teaching. The fieldnotes were a record, or a play- visually and spatially organizing the narrative
by-play account, of the teachers’ main actions of data.
the observed Reciprocal Teaching session. During At this point, pattern coding commenced, which
Phase II of data collection, another round of involved the interpretation of the data clustered
individual interviews and classroom observations within the descriptive or major code categories
took place before the third training session (T3). In (Miles & Huberman, 1984). Each of the major
Phase III, a third round of interviews and code matrices was printed and coded for different
observations was conducted after the fourth and patterns of thought or ideas expressed by the
final training session (T4). Thus, the data consisted participant. At the end of each pattern coding
of interview transcripts, the participants’ graphical session, I also used the pattern code lists to
representations, classroom field notes, and the create concept maps in reflexive journals to
interactions that took place during the training solidify my understandings of the data; these
sessions, which were also audio-recorded, video- processes alerted me to biases, and helped me to
recorded, and transcribed. Detailed analyses (A1, formalize a list of pattern codes for member
A2, and A3) occurred during and after the data checks. The data were then entered into pattern
collection phases. code matrices for each of the pattern codes
generated.
2.5. Coding procedures Discussions with a peer debriefer (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) concluded the data analysis process
In each phase of data collection, data were for Phases I and II. The peer debriefer had a
collected on two consecutive days (interview on specialist degree in School Psychology and had
day 1 and observation on day 2) and transcription previously been enrolled in two graduate-level
of audiotapes began immediately thereafter. After courses during which Reciprocal Teaching and
the data for the phase were collected (including the learning principles were discussed. The peer
data collected during the training sessions), the debriefer’s role was to challenge the pattern codes,
data were coded using eight major codes: the four ask for clarification and specification of vague
procedures of Reciprocal Teaching (questioning, codes, and offer alternative interpretations of the
clarifying, summarizing, and predicting) and the data.
four principles of interest (cognitive apprentice- Finally, inter-rater reliability for the coding
ship, ZPD, scaffolding, and proleptic teaching). schemes was obtained, with the assistance of an
This major coding involved simply identifying experienced certified special education teacher. She
when the participant was talking about or was given the pattern codes and matrices for each
obviously engaging in one of the eight major major code with at least 10% of randomly selected
codes. Observational data were primarily used to text segments from each phase. Therefore, for each
triangulate the teachers’ understanding of the major code, 30% of each participant’s data was
procedures, that is when teachers helped students used to test the coding scheme. Multiple codes
to summarize, what did the teacher do? The were assigned to each text segment. A match was
teachers’ understanding of the principles was not assigned when both primary and secondary rater
easily observable in their practice; thus, observa- assigned the same code to a segment. The total
tions were rarely coded for understanding of number of possible codes was the number of
principles. possible matches. Thus, if the secondary coder
Once all data within a phase were coded with the assigned a code that was not assigned by the
eight major codes, the text segments from all data primary, it became a possible match and vice
sources (interviews, observations, and training) versa. An inter-rater reliability of 70% was
were entered into conceptually clustered chron- obtained for Rick’s coding scheme, 75% for
ological matrices. These are separate grids for each Evita’s. The reliability for Rick was lower primar-
of the eight major codes designed to facilitate the ily due to the coding of the ‘‘clarifying’’ procedure
332 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

for which the primary coder (first author) assigned nature of knowledge and its construction. When
a greater number of codes to each text segment describing the ZPD, Rick revealed a ‘‘staircase
than the secondary. model’’ of learning when he talked about how
students would develop their knowledge ‘‘one step
at a time’’, would not go back to lower steps, and
3. Results could not move on to the next step until the one
they were working on was finished. In contrast,
Our analyses suggested that the evolution of Evita’s model resembled a modified version of the
teachers’ conceptual development revealed several information processing metaphor (Atkinson &
misconceptions about both the principles and Shiffrin, 1968; Strauss & Shilony, 1994) in which
procedures of Reciprocal Teaching as well as students add ideas to their brains, link multiple
cognitive growth during the intervention. We ideas in networks, and develop ideas by reflecting
discuss these findings in turn; our discussion on them and creating new links. Evita’s drawings
includes various commonalities in the teachers’ in Fig. 2 illustrate how she was visualizing these
cognitive development, such as cognitive ‘‘re- connections. One prominent difference between
lapses’’ and the unconscious tendency to resist the information processing account and Evita’s
change. model, however, is that while the former is a
metaphor, Evita posited that ideas are contained
3.1. Misinterpretation of principles in physical spaces in the brain, which she called the
ZPD.
As expected, the principles were difficult for In training sessions three and four, the research-
participants to understand (Brown & Campione, er tried to dispel the idea that the ZPD was a
1996; Lamon et al., 1996). The teachers’ under- physical place in the brain, but Evita’s comments
standing of the ZPD was particularly interesting during the last interview suggested that she was
because the participants interpreted this principle still working from this premise. She seemed to sum
according to their personal preconceptions of the up her thoughts about the ZPD when she

Fig. 2. Evita’s drawings from the first, second, and third interviews illustrating ZPDs building on each other.
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 333

explained the ‘‘advancing in thought process’’ apprenticeship was a ‘‘selective process’’ and
comment on her concept map, as so: although this notion is consistent with Reciprocal
Teaching, it is not the meaning of cognitive
Advancing in thought processes, okay, moving
apprenticeship. The notion of a ‘‘selective process’’
onto what we were talking about as the
is discussed below under conceptual growth
complex. I call it a complex. Other people call
because it represents an accurate interpretation
it other things I suppose. Or the next zone of
of one aspect of Reciprocal Teaching.
proximal development. I think those are the
Proleptic teaching was difficult for the teachers,
same things for me. Okay, because I see a
largely because the word proleptic is uncommon,
complex like this [pointing to the third interview
but also because the idea itself is not trivial. Rick
drawing in Figure 2]. And like if I say fear, okay
changed his mind several times about its meaning.
what kind of things invoke fear or what kind of
At one time he believed it meant adjusting to the
things do we feel when we fear something. Uh,
level of the group, and at a later point he thought
we get uh goosebumps [laughs]. Okay, we
it meant verifying that students understand or
sweat. Things like that. Uh, we make strange
move at an accelerated pace. Evita believed she
faces and all these things, and then we have this,
was being proleptic when she engaged in Recipro-
which is fear, which is now in our memory and
cal Teaching sessions that contained no corrective
categorized by these particular details. Okay?
feedback. Although it is true that all students
So that is, for me, that would be a zone of
should be able to engage in the Reciprocal
proximal development that we have reached
Teaching procedures at their current level of
and categorized and set in our memories. And
ability without reproof, it is still necessary for the
now we use THIS to get to higher order
teacher to assist them to achieve higher levels of
complexes or zones. And thought expansion
ability.
or connections, or connecting, making those
connections from one main idea to another
3.2. Misinterpretation of procedures
main idea, to another main idea, to another
main idea.
Brown and Campione (1996) reasoned that
In accordance with the belief that knowledge teachers ‘‘lethally mutated’’ Reciprocal Teaching
acquisition is additive, Evita talked about scaf- because they did not understand the learning
folding as a foundation of knowledge on which to principles upon which the procedures were based.
build more knowledge instead of as the forms of The current investigation uncovered, however,
assistance an expert provides to a novice. Evita that teachers can experience significant difficulty
thought that the ‘‘scaffold of information’’ would when trying to understand the procedures in and
support students’ ability to learn, that one would of themselves. Speece, MacDonald, Kilsheimer,
sort ideas in the scaffold in order of importance, and Krist (1997) noted that clarifying and ques-
and that it was the teacher’s job to ascertain and tioning are sometimes confusing for teachers, but
fix any problems in the scaffold of information. they did not elaborate on how these two proce-
Such an ‘‘additive’’ model was reflected in Rick’s dures were being confused or why. Our case
thoughts as well, although in a different way. Rick studies shed some light on the probable reasons
used the word coaching as a synonym for for common misinterpretations.
scaffolding, and thought that he was coaching It seems that both participants initially confused
students to obtain knowledge. Nevertheless, his the clarifying and questioning procedures. During
ultimate goal was to add the knowledge in the text questioning, the goal is for students to ask
to the students’ minds. questions about the text that help explicate the
Rick interpreted cognitive apprenticeship as a main ideas of the passage. During clarifying, the
process of knowledge acquisition during which goal is to elucidate unknown vocabulary and
his role was to coach, or facilitate, the acquisi- concepts. Our analyses revealed the difficulties
tion process. Evita’s definition of cognitive the teachers were experiencing stemmed from the
334 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

Questioning Clarifying

Students Clarify by
Rick Students ask Questions Answering/Discussing the
about words or ideas Questions just asked during
they do not understand. Questioning.

Students ask questions Whenever needed, students

R.T. to call attention to the may ask for clarification of
text’s key ideas unknown words or ideas and
get answers.

Fig. 3. Rick’s understanding of questioning and clarifying procedures compared to original Reciprocal Teaching (R.T.) questioning
and clarifying procedures.

fact that (a) both of the procedures involve asking procedure the point in time when the teacher
questions, (b) students usually raise questions in would clarify or discuss the main idea of the
school when something is not understood, and (c) reading. Specifically, Evita decided that she would
the everyday understanding of the word ‘‘clarify’’ begin by asking the students ‘‘concentrated ques-
is to explain something in more detail. The tions’’ that would clarify the main idea of the text;
following paragraphs detail the evolution of the this way she would be helping them to ‘‘get’’ the
two participants’ understanding of questioning important information in the text to add to their
and clarifying. foundation of information.
As illustrated in Fig. 3, Rick resisted the notion It becomes easier to understand Evita’s response
that the questioning procedure was anything when one considers that, in everyday parlance, to
different from the questions students typically clarify is to make the meaning of something clear.
ask in class. As a result, Rick was performing the Evita explained that when people engage in
clarifying procedure thinking it was the question- reading:
ing procedure. He believed that the first part of the
The ideas of each sentence, of each paragraph,
clarifying procedure, when the students ask the
are sometimes in the sentence but we do not
question, was the questioning procedure. He was
clarify them. They do not hit us in the face.
simply breaking clarifying up into two steps, and
They do not hit the students in the face. So this
therefore not engaging in any actual Reciprocal
is a process of making the students eliminate
Teaching questioning. As the transcript excerpt in
unnecessary words and unnecessary informa-
Fig. 4 conveys, during the second training session,
tion to get at the main ideas of the sentence, and
Rick seemed to understand the clarifying proce-
those ideas are the ZPDs.
dure, but by the second interview he had again
confused questioning and clarifying. It appears Therefore, Evita was not combining clarifying
that Rick experienced the type of regression and questioning as Rick did. She was simply using
to prior understanding that Siegler (1996) illu- the word ‘‘clarify’’ to describe the process of
strated using an overlapping wave metaphor of helping the students distill the main ideas from the
development. text by engaging them in the Reciprocal Teaching
In contrast to Rick, Evita was correctly enga- questioning procedure. In fact, during the second
ging in the questioning procedure, but not the training session, this issue surfaced and Evita
clarifying procedure. During training, she was stated, ‘‘using questions helps to clarify summar-
forced to construct an understanding of clarifying, izing’’. The researcher repeated this phrase with a
and her solution was to make the clarifying questioning tone of voice and Evita responded
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 335

Researcher: Do you want to ask a question? Would you like me to?

Rick: What do you mean by, I’m confused when it says difficult terminology or concepts.

Evita: Okay, um, that would mean, um, okay, and let’s see… would I answer this or would the
students answer this?

Researcher: Either one.

Evita: Either one. Okay.

Researcher: Whatever you would prefer.

Evita: I just wanted to ask. And uh, that would mean when you don’t understand the word, or a
group of words, and then you would bring it to the group’s attention that this meaning is missing
and that you need information.

Researcher: For example, what you just did. You asked for us to clarify a sentence. [R: Okay] That’s
part of Reciprocal Teaching. That’s clarifying.

Rick: Okay, that’s really different.

Researcher: Okay, that is, that is what the clarifying procedure is. That’s the definition of it, is what
you just did. Difficult words, difficult ideas....

Rick: At times, um, depending on the time allocated, would it be advisable to let the students look
up different um terminology in the dictionary? Or just go ahead and give them the meaning of it?

Researcher: Often your students will be able to help, and if they can’t, go grab a dictionary.
Whatever you feel is appropriate for the students that you are working with.

Rick: Okay.

Fig. 4. Rick’s ideas about clarifying and questioning are challenged in the second training session.

with, ‘‘Helps to, ymaybe clarifying isn’t the word Although a discussion about the future might be
I want. yUm, help to beyhelps to define educationally worthwhile, the goal of predicting in
summaries’’. The discussion about the meaning Reciprocal Teaching is to aid reading comprehen-
of clarifying continued, and then Evita stated, sion. Therefore, Evita, Rick, and the researcher
‘‘Okay, let’s try this. Questioning, um, organizes agreed that when engaging in predicting during
the information to be able to make a clearer Reciprocal Teaching sessions, it should be con-
summary’’. This notion is an accurate under- strained to discussing what will occur next in the
standing of questioning, and may be used to help text.
teachers in future professional development ses- Summarizing was the easiest procedure for the
sions. teachers to understand. Nevertheless, they asked
Predicting was more straightforward than ques- questions about whether the summaries should be
tioning and clarifying for the teachers to under- constructed by individual students or by groups of
stand and implement. At one point, however, the students, believing a summary constructed by
teachers were confused about whether the predict- many students would capture more of the infor-
ing should be about what would come next in the mation in the text. The researcher explained that
text or what would happen next in future their adaptations were acceptable as long as the
situations outside the parameters of the text. focus was on helping all students generate main
336 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

idea summaries. In general, both Evita and Rick wide net that was gradually pulled in with each
understood this procedure and helped their subsequent procedure until the summary phase,
students to successfully perform it. which included only the main idea. These were
sophisticated ideas and revealed an understanding
3.3. Conceptual growth of Reciprocal Teaching and student cognition that
was not anticipated.
3.3.1. Beliefs about procedures Rick also revealed worthwhile insights about
By the end of the training, Evita and Rick were the procedures. During the final interview, Rick
both successfully implementing all four procedures emphasized that the students should be the
in their classroom Reciprocal Teaching sessions. ones engaging in these procedures so that they
The teachers’ beliefs of the procedures of clarifying could think for themselves and develop thinking
and questioning were where the greatest cognitive skills. Rick also noted that the students’ summa-
growth occurred for both teachers, but their ideas ries were feedback for him to ascertain how
about the other two procedures might also be well they understood the text. Rick claimed that
worthwhile to share with teachers in future students’ predictions were also good feedback,
professional development efforts. noting that if the predictions were accurate then
Evita developed sophisticated ideas about the the first three procedures (questioning, clarifying,
questioning procedure. From the beginning, she and summarizing) had accomplished the goal
stated that the answers to the questions had to be of helping the students understand the informa-
in the text. She pointed out that her students were tion in the text. Evita also believed that the
then forced to view the text differently because students ‘‘digested the meaning’’ of the text using
they were required to know the answer to their the first three procedures, and she added that
question before they asked it. Later, she expanded predicting was an opportunity for the students to
on this idea by stating that to form a question, the review the text and further develop their under-
students would need to scan the text and select out standing.
important information. In the final interview, she
noted that there were three levels of questions that 3.3.2. Beliefs about principles
students ask: sorting detail questions, detail with With regard to the principles, the teachers made
main idea questions, and main idea questions. significant progress, but did not fully understand
Finally, she pointed out that the questions help any of them by the end of the training. This may
students to identify ideas for both clarifying and be because, when broadly framed, the principles
summarizing. are not particularly useful for teachers engaging in
In addition, she came to understand clarifying specific instructional practice. For example, Tharp
as the time when the group ascertains whether and Gallimore (1989) asserted that the metaphor
there are any comprehension problems or any of scaffolding is convoluted and confusing in terms
words that are not understood. The images she of what it means for practice. Tharp and
used to describe the functions of all the procedures Gallimore suggested it is perhaps more useful to
were particularly striking. Using the metaphor of a talk about different forms of assistance that
funnel, Evita described how the questions were the teachers can provide such as modeling, question-
first step in narrowing down what the students ing, and revoicing. Indeed, Rick asked a very good
should attend to. Clarifying helped narrow the question during training: How does a teacher build
funnel by directing attention. Summarizing, then, a scaffold around students? What should one do?
was an opportunity for students to sort through all These are legitimate questions, the answers to
the details of the text and choose the most which are not self-evident. This is further sup-
important ones. Finally, predicting opened the ported by the fact that value and meaning of the
funnel wide again (an hourglass may have been a metaphor of scaffolding has undergone significant
more appropriate metaphor). Another metaphor analyses in the literature (McCaslin & Hickey,
she used was of casting a net. Predicting cast a 2001; Palincsar, 1998; Stone, 1998).
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 337

Rick’s knowledge of the principles was incom- with students about the language skills she
plete at the end of the investigation, but he did expected during Reciprocal Teaching. She helped
capture several essential aspects of the concepts. students to understand declarative and interroga-
For example, although Rick began with very little tive forms of discourse and the different word
knowledge of scaffolding, he did realize that the order that was required for each. During observa-
goal was to decrease his scaffolding (or ‘‘coach- tions, Evita insisted that her students use full
ing’’) over time so that the students would become sentences. This practice is not an explicit part of
independent. With regard to his understanding Reciprocal Teaching, but it does not conflict with
of cognitive apprenticeship, he determined that any of the supporting principles.
the goal was learning. In this sense, Rick was Finally, Evita used many concepts to define and
accurate in believing that Reciprocal Teaching was describe cognitive apprenticeship, including the
a cognitive apprenticeship because clarifying and ‘‘selective process of getting main ideas out of the
questioning produce understanding. What was not text’’. While this was not an accurate definition of
clear is whether he considered the students’ cognitive apprenticeship, it is nevertheless an
increasing levels of competence while assisting activity that occurs during Reciprocal Teaching
them to engage in clarifying and questioning. sessions. The procedures are indeed a vehicle for
Evita’s thoughts about scaffolding were parti- students to engage in this cognitive ‘‘selective
cularly interesting in that she had several good process’’ and thus her understandings of cognitive
ideas, none of which was the definition of apprenticeship could be construed as a process,
scaffolding. Despite Evita’s inaccurate final defini- although vaguely articulated, of transferring high-
tion of scaffolding as a ‘‘foundation of informa- er-order reading skills to the students.
tion’’ in students’ minds, and her insistence that Evita also internalized the notion that Recipro-
proleptic teaching meant that she would not give cal Teaching helps students develop a sense of
the students any ‘‘negative evidence’’ about their story structure or genre. She referred to this as a
abilities, she was nevertheless using scaffolding ‘‘structure apprenticeship’’, and discussed it when
appropriately in her classroom. For example, talking about cognitive apprenticeship. This is an
during one classroom Reciprocal Teaching ses- impressive extension and a logical connection.
sion, a student was ignoring or misunderstanding
Evita’s request to ask a question that would have
the answer in the text. The student repeatedly 4. Discussion
shared personal anecdotes to support a theory the
student was proposing. In response to this, Evita The present case study attempted to characterize
asked, ‘‘What in the text supports your theory?’’, the development of two teachers’ thinking as they
which successfully prompted the student to focus engaged in four separate training sessions on
his attention back on understanding the text. Reciprocal Teaching. An important finding that
Another point worthy of discussion is that emerged from the study is that it is not sufficient
although Evita interpreted the metaphor of a to simply ‘‘mention’’ (Mosenthal et al., 1992)
scaffold to function as an informational founda- Reciprocal Teaching in teacher education pro-
tion, she knew the meaning of a physical scaffold; grams for the technique to be successfully learned
she defined it as, ‘‘that kind of structure that you and implemented correctly. This is consistent with
see around the buildings that, uh, is supportive so other research efforts (Brown & Campione, 1996;
that you can reach higher and higher and higher’’. Coley, Depinto, Craig, & Gardner, 1993; Lamon
It is additionally worthwhile to mention that et al., 1996; Marks et al., 1993; Rosenshine &
Evita initially thought of scaffolding as the Meister, 1994; Speece et al., 1997), and provides
support systems a teacher must put in place before a serious challenge for those interested in train-
students can engage in an activity—for Reciprocal ing teachers, at any level, to use instruction
Teaching, this specifically meant the development designed to improve students’ reading comprehen-
of students’ language skills. Evita was very explicit sion skill.
338 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

Furthermore, we cannot claim, as Brown and chers’ developing performance. In our case, it
Campione (1996) suggested, that understanding would have been particularly useful to indicate to
the principles of learning is necessary for successful Evita the instances where she was successfully
implementation. Our work can, however, provide engaging in scaffolding.
some guidance to those who help teachers learn As Palincsar et al. (1989) argued, beliefs about
about and implement Reciprocal Teaching in the teaching and learning must be addressed in
classroom. Specifically, our findings are informa- professional development activities if teachers are
tive with respect to the types of activities that to implement Reciprocal Teaching successfully.
motivate teachers to learn about Reciprocal The participants’ information processing concep-
Teaching as well as the teachers’ subsequent tions of the mind clearly influenced their thinking
learning trajectories. We now have a much clearer about the principles, procedures, and goals of
idea of educators’ cognitions as they are engaged Reciprocal Teaching. In particular, the epistemo-
in specific activities related to Reciprocal Teach- logical belief that learning is adding information to
ing, and as a result, professional development the mind made it difficult for teachers to under-
specialists now have some interesting and produc- stand and coordinate the dual goals of Reciprocal
tive hypotheses about supporting teachers’ emer- Teaching.
ging understandings. Research such as ours is Indeed, the most difficult roadblock for both
valuable because it uncovers various misconcep- teachers was the existence of varying levels of
tions about specific elements of constructive ability in performing the procedures, and that the
instructional activity, such as Reciprocal Teach- teacher’s job is to help children advance in their
ing. Given the confusion between questioning and own ability. It is possible that the model of
clarifying experienced by the teachers in this study, ‘‘adding knowledge’’ interferes with the teachers’
for example, a professional teacher educator might ability to construct an understanding of what
use a diagram, such as the one found in Fig. 3, to ‘‘thinking strategies’’ are and how to teach them. If
explain the difference between these two proce- the teachers’ goal was to add knowledge to their
dures. In addition, it might be useful for teachers students’ minds, which it appeared to be in this
to reflect on their understandings by creating study, it would be safe to assume that they also
node-link representations of current understand- believed that their role as an educator is to provide
ings, thereby sharing more concrete representa- the knowledge, or at least show the students where
tions of their beliefs to a trainer or co-trainee. the knowledge is. This view is, of course,
We also found that there can be differences antithetical to the philosophy of Reciprocal
between what teachers espouse and what they do Teaching and any other instruction based on
(Strauss & Shilony, 1994). Evita, for example, was current constructivist theory (Gardner, 1991;
able to guide her students to engage effectively in NRC, 1999). In Reciprocal Teaching, students
comprehension monitoring strategies, but none- are expected to construct their own understand-
theless struggled with the meaning of the term ings of the text as the teacher guides them to
scaffolding throughout the intervention. This acquire and master the tools, or thinking strate-
instance is similar to Duffy’s (1993b) experience gies, with which to comprehend it. The rationales
with a teacher who did not know the definitions of that the teachers produced during the intervention
the terms he was trying to teach her, but was were useful in exposing such beliefs, but we did
acting in ways that embodied those terms, thus not devote enough time to making explicit
supporting her students’ learning efforts rather comparisons to expert rationales. Furthermore,
well. Effective professional development, there- our observation that the teachers’ views of
fore, would include activities that attempt to cognition affected their ability to interpret the
connect declarative knowledge related to Recipro- procedures and principles of Reciprocal Teaching
cal Teaching with the associated procedural suggests that explicitly addressing the theoretical
knowledge. Training activities might include cognitive implications of each of the procedures
watching and discussing videotapes of the tea- during training would have been productive. For
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 339

example, from an information processing perspec- tion of ‘‘isolated facts’’ to mean that instruction
tive, the summarizing procedure is intended to does not contain any facts at all. In those teachers’
chunk information in working memory so that minds, literal understanding was not a goal, but
storage and retrieval from long-term memory rather something to be avoided altogether. Yet,
would be more successful. Although we did reading for meaning and the understanding of
address the basic function of summarizing as facts and concepts is central to Reciprocal Teach-
identifying main ideas, we did not discuss it in ing, especially within Fostering Communities of
terms of a model of cognition such as information Learners (Brown & Campione, 1990).
processing. This is not addressed in the literature It is evident that this type of research cannot
and may be a productive direction for redesign. end here; similar investigations need to be con-
Clearly, this leaves us with a way to improve the ducted with a greater number of teachers and a
training for future efforts. larger variety of training activities. It is also clear
The rationales elicited during the intervention that teachers’ cognitive development should be
provided a window on some of the most important tracked during training sessions that expose their
goals for language arts teachers, which influence beliefs more frequently and provide better tools
their ability to successfully engage in reading for reflection. Future research should also
instruction. Understanding their goals provides concentrate on the reading comprehension abilities
information to teacher educators on the reasons of the teachers themselves, addressing the degree
behind deviations from engaging in programs such to which they possess the content know-
as Reciprocal Teaching. For example, classroom ledge critical to teaching Reciprocal Teaching
managerial styles have been shown to occupy a (Shulman, 1986). Finally, we suggest that students
great deal of novice teachers’ cognitive space learning to engage in Reciprocal Teaching may
(Blumenfeld et al., 1996; Borko & Putnam, face some of the same cognitive challenges that
1996). In the case of the Marks et al. (1993) these teachers experienced. For example, as Evita
study, in which teachers reported that their was able to scaffold but not able to explicate the
goal was to simultaneously promote active parti- correct meaning of the word, students may
cipation and to ensure adequate classroom man- understand a paragraph but still not be able
agement, such goals may deter teachers from to summarize it. We thus urge researchers in
engaging flexibly in scaffolding processes. More teacher education to take these suggestions to
research is needed with respect to the relationship heart when attempting to understand how teachers
between teacher goals and Reciprocal Teaching and their students learn about reading comprehen-
implementation. sion strategies.
Another implication for teacher training pro-
grams is that teachers’ beliefs should be elicited
and addressed at more regular intervals through- Acknowledgements
out professional development. This is especially
important because although this and other re- The authors would like to thank Cheryl Ward
search can uncover some beliefs that may be and the staff of SFT for their help and cooperation
typical, not all teachers will hold the same beliefs in organizing the pilot and research training
as Rick and Evita. For example, the findings of sessions conducted in this study. Special thanks
Marks et al. (1993) indicated that teachers were and admiration is extended to Rick and Evita for
‘‘unconcerned with literal memory and under- their dedication to their students, efforts to
standing’’ (p. 281). In fact, one of the reasons the advance their own learning, and willingness to
teacher in the Marks et al. study wanted to use share their thinking about Reciprocal Teaching
their version of Reciprocal Teaching was because during this investigation. A previous version of
they believed it discouraged students from asking this article was presented at the 2001 annual
factual questions. These teachers were apparently meeting of the American Educational Research
misconstruing the notion of avoiding the instruc- Association, Seattle, WA.
340 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

Appendix A. Teacher training materials Appendix B. ZPD for summaising–two hypotheti-

cal cases
During Reciprocal Teaching sessions students
begin by reading a passage either aloud or silently. 5—main idea invention 5—main idea invention
After a meaningful chunk of text is read, students summary summary
construct questions about important information 4—long lists with some 4—long lists with some
in the text. By asking questions students identify inventions inventions
what is important in the story. Consequently, the 3—long lists of selections 3—long lists of selections
next task of summarizing is clearer. A summary is 2—a few selections 2—a few selections
one or two sentences that contain the most 1—cannot summarize 1—cannot summarize
important ideas. A good summary reflects a clear alone alone
understanding of the reading. AMY BETSY
It may be appropriate to clarify difficult
terminology or concepts that come up during
Reciprocal Teaching sessions. When a member of
the Reciprocal Teaching group detects a break- Appendix C
down in comprehension, he or she asks to have the
point clarified by the group. Another opportunity Text retyped from:
to make sense of the text that may arise is when it Shuell, T. J. (1996). Teaching and learning in a
is logical to ask for predictions. Often a text leaves classroom context. In D. C. Berliner & R. C.
the reader wondering what will happen next. At Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology
these times, students may wish to offer their (pp. 726–764). MacMillan: New York.
predictions. Learning is a natural process that often occurs
The teacher’s role during Reciprocal Teaching with the assistance of another individual or an
is that of an expert reader who is apprenticing artifact created by another individual (e.g., a book
her students into the world of reading for meaning. [fiction or non-fiction], movie, instructional man-
To establish this cognitive apprenticeship, he ual, video). There is a tendency to associate
or she is modeling his or her own expert thinki- teaching with schools, but a great deal of our
ng while reading processes during Reciprocal learning from instruction occurs outside of school
Teaching sessions. For example, talking about from parents, friends, and other individuals with
how they did not understand a word and need to whom we come in contact. The way in which we
clarify it. learn outside of school, however, often is very
Because the teacher adopts a proleptic teach- different from the way students are expected to
ing stance, the teacher always models expert learn in school.
thinking, regardless of where the child may The educational value of apprenticeships has
be in their development. The teacher knows the long been recognized in many non-school situa-
typical development students go through when tions. When an individual wishes to establish
they learn to question and summarize. The expertise in a particular field, for instance, he or
teacher therefore scaffolds the student expand she becomes an apprentice to an established expert
to the next level they may attain. This level in the field who helps that individual acquire the
may be one, two, or three steps further knowledge and skills characteristic of experts in
in development, depending on the student’s that field. The person initially learns by observing
ZPD. The teacher, as a scaffold, only helps when and performing tasks that represent only a small
it is necessary and often lets the student struggle part of the overall task. Through these and
within their ZPD. Often this involves a great subsequent observations (modeling), coaching
deal of fun and encouragement, including from the mentor, practice on increasingly more
supporting efforts to predict future passages in complex tasks, and progressive fading of instruc-
the text. tional support, the apprentice gradually develops
 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344 341

the competence of the mentor. These character- specific question using that information. The
istics are evident in the various apprenticeship teacher gradually assumes the less active role of
models that have been suggested for use in the coach, giving students feedback and encouraging
schools. them, as shown in the excerpt in Figure 26–3.
Text retyped from: Using this approach, students learn how to engage
Webb, N. M., & Palincsar, A. S. (1996). Group in the strategies for reading comprehension with
processes in the classroom. In D. C. Berliner & R. minimal intervention from the teacher and make
C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychol- major gains in reading comprehension (Brown &
ogy (pp. 865–866). MacMillan: New York. Palincsar, 1989: Palincsar, 1986; Palincsar &
Scaffolding. Scaffolding is a ‘‘process that Brown, 1984).
enables a child or novice to solve a problem,
carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would
be beyond his unassisted efforts’’ (Wood et al., Appendix D
1976, p. 90). In teacher scaffolding, the teacher
explains and models the behavior that he or she Different ways to scaffold
wants students to engage in, gives them opportu-
nities to demonstrate that behavior, provides 1. Prompting—‘‘What question did you think a
feedback on their performance, and gradually teacher might ask?’’
provides less assistance as students become 2. Instruction—‘‘Remember, a summary is a
more competent at displaying the desired be- shortened version, it doesn’t include all the
havior (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). Palincsar and detail’’.
Brown (1984) developed teacher-scaffolded in- 3. Modifying activity—‘‘If you are having a hard
struction, referred to as Reciprocal Teaching, time thinking of a question, why don’t you
to help students carry out certain strategies summarize first?’’
designed to improve comprehension of text: 4. Praise and feedback—‘‘You asked that question
generating questions about the text they have well; it was very clear what information you
read, clarifying what they do not understand, wanted’’.
summarizing the text, and generating predictions. 5. Modeling activity that needs improvement—‘‘A
Teachers initially take the leadership in explaining question I would have asked would bey’’.
the strategies and modeling their use in making 6. Explicitly telling students that the strategies are
sense of the text. Then the teachers ask students to ways people help themselves understand what
demonstrate the strategies, but give them con- they are reading. That it will help them to do
siderable support. For example, to help a student the strategies whenever they are reading. That
generate questions to ask other students, the they should practice them when they are read-
teacher might probe what information the student ing books of all kinds (Palincsar & Brown,
gleans from the text, and help the student phrase a 1984).

Other suggested tips for scaffolding

Courtesy of Mary Ellen Vogt, former president of the California State Reading Association

Predicting
I think___________
I bet_____________
I wonder__________
I predict__________
342 J.R. Seymour, H.P. Osana / Teaching and Teacher Education 19 (2003) 325–344

Questioning
(Brown & Palincsar, 1984)
A question I want to ask that starts with the word (Who, what, why, etc…)
I wonder___________
Who?_____________
Where?____________
What?_____________
When?_____________
Why?_____________
I’m curious about______

Clarifying
This is confusing to me. I need to ____________ (reread, slow down, look at illustrations or
graphs, try to figure this word out, etc…)

Summarizing
In my own words, this is about _____________
The main point of this was_________________
Overall this was about____________________

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