Linguistically responsive reciprocal teaching in primary school: effectiveness of an intervention study on students’ Reading competence

Abstract

One shared goal of classroom instruction is to support students’ reading competence as a key skill of school success and participation in daily life. Yet, teaching that addresses multilingual students’ language-related resources to support reading is rare. In this study, we enriched reciprocal teaching with elements of linguistically responsive teaching (labelled LRRT) and conducted an intervention study in German primary schools (38 classes and 684 students) to examine its effects on reading competence. To assess reading competence, we used reading comprehension and reading strategy tests. Findings demonstrate the feasibility of our approach in regular primary school classes. Teachers and students highly valued the teaching unit as well. Results of latent mean difference score analysis confirmed the effectiveness of LRRT with respect to students’ reading strategy use but not with respect to their reading comprehension. Moreover, multilingual and monolingual students did not differ in their gains in reading competence. However, multilingual students’ different language use was of particular importance for gains in reading comprehension. The study thus provides further research on multilingualism as well as various stimuli for teachers of today’s heterogenous primary school classes.