| English Language Learners are an ever-growing population in public school systems today. Consequently, the policies and procedures that schools are required to adhere to are not limited to language minority students. In order for teachers to meet the needs of English Language Learning students, they need to address their student's whole educational experience -- on an academic and social level. The integrated teaching of language and content is not only beneficial for language learning students, but it is also necessary for the students' overall success in school. Moreover, the collaborative reading strategy of reciprocal teaching allows students to develop their academic and social skills through cognitive techniques. Reciprocal teaching involves four comprehension strategies that the students engage in while reading. By summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting the students are actively participating in the analysis and verbal discussion of the text in order to understand what is being read. This highly effective technique for teaching students cognitive strategies that lead to improved development of their reading comprehension are directly paralleled to the four strategies of reciprocal teaching. Furthermore, application of these comprehension strategies were modeled and scaffolded prior to shifting the responsibility to the students on an independent level through use of various medias of text. The impact of reciprocal teaching's effect on English Language Learner's reading comprehension at the intermediate level has not been investigated fully. However, this study provides the field of education with an added research that will support student participation, development, and application of essential reading strategies. This grounded theory research measured a collaborative reading strategy's effects on language learning students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades at a rural county intermediate elementary school. The results of this study demonstrated the positive effects on the reading comprehension of English Language Learners as a result of the introduction, study, and practice of reciprocal teaching. Improvement in student performance produced self-sufficient and confident second language learning readers. The strategies delineated in this collaborative reading approach proved successful with students in a rural intermediate elementary school in north central Florida. |
