In order to investigate the "endurance" of students' understanding, I did a follow-up study with students from the Fall class.  Four months after the course, I tested 15 students (about half the class) to determine what they remembered and understood about reciprocal teaching.  Fourteen students recalled at least some of the characteristics of the reciprocal teaching method (e.g., involved group reading sessions, children acted as teachers, summarized, predicted).  Then, after reading a brief summary about reciprocal teaching, eleven students gave at least one causal connection response to explain why RT improves comprehension (e.g. "clarifying to other students makes them read it over if they do not understand it and saying it out loud to others will help them remember.  Summarizing the material in his/her own words is helpful because then the students get the main idea and leave out the unnecessary and it becomes more clear.").  These data suggest that students' understanding endures several months after the course.

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