What was your motivation to move away from streaming?

When I first came here, (as principal) I found, particularly around reading that the children in the juniors had a very phonics-based approach and couldn’t get on with reading because they could not master the phonics of English in a timely way. Even when these children were mastering phonics, they were reading the words but not understanding what they meant. So, we were looking around to see how we could do this differently. 

At this school what are the things that we really believe in – we want children to collaborate, we want them to work in teams, we want to view everybody as a successful learner, everyone can succeed – having that growth mindset – so it’s bringing all those threads (together) 

What was the approach you took to making the shift?

Our interest in reciprocal teaching (in NZ many teachers and students know it as RT3T) was sparked by what we read about the work at Mangere College, my previous experience with reciprocal approaches and clear evidence that previous approaches to teaching reading were not working well. We had our first experience of RT3T™ in 2020 when we asked Mangere College for some of our ex-students to visit and tell us more. 

RT3T™ fitted with our search for a better way – a way that was not just focused on literacy but also builds on our students’ cultural strengths, such as a desire to work collaboratively, empathy for the wellbeing of others, and their rich cultural and language backgrounds.

It also fitted with the need to address that, at all year levels our students are having difficulties with comprehending what they read, despite their decoding skills being at or above their age equivalent level. This means they tend to stay trapped in disproportionate underachievement.

“Reciprocal teaching is about a collaborative type of teaching and learning. It can be done right across all learning areas, and I’ve worked hard to bring it into a school wide model. It was developed in the 1980s as a literacy programme, and at its essence are four thinking skills: questioning, clarifying, summarising, and predicting.  Students initially learn in a ritualized way and with enough explicit teaching and support to get their thinking skills to a very high-level.”

Shirley continues, “We started two years ago. At first, I didn't think we needed RT3T™ because the general principles of reciprocal reading have been around for a long time… But we quickly realised that the reality is that teachers need deep and skilled support. The aspects of it to me which are important are around the mixed ability grouping, it is around the fact that the children step up and have agency, that they start to take over the role of teacher and that they work together, they have turns being the teacher and they are also able to assess themselves.”

Year 7/8 team leader Melissa, says that "despite everything that’s happened with Covid we’ve been driving RT right throughout from Y3 to Y7-8, as has our management… and into math’s, writing and general theme work... It’s very beneficial… it allows for other students who have been away to come and be quickly re-engaged… It’s been a great tool for us teachers to utilise in the classroom… It has allowed us to quickly settle our students down in their teams … and start thinking about learning… enhancing their thinking skills… We believe in Reciprocal Teaching RT3T™, and we believe that every school should be doing it."

What does success look like?

After the first seven months with RT3T, despite periods of disruption, the year level results on the STAR showed that students in Y3 and Y4 made the most significant gains of 29.9 percent and 27.2 percent respectively. This was closely followed by the Y5, Y6 and Y8 students with an increase of 20.7 percent, 21.3 percent and 21.4 percent respectively. The Y7 students made the least shift with an increase of 9.6 percent. 

STAR data shows that despite missing nearly half a year of schooling with Covid, students quickly regained their pre-Covid skill set and continue to progress. Results also show that not only did students improve considerably on comprehension, but also on decoding scores. 

Shirley continues: “I do think that having programmes like this make a huge difference because we are resonating with the way children understand and live their lives. These children understand how to work in groups, they understand at a very deep level what it means to cooperate, what it means to help another person.”

For more information on RT3T™ visit the RTeach website.